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A Thrifty 
NewPackage 

• • 




that gives you/more for your money 


The Franklin ACE from CK Computers. The Desk-top micro that's 
CP/M AND Apple compatible AND much, much more . . . 

Looking for a personal computer for your business 7 You get more for your money 
with the Franklin ACE. CP/M and Apple compatible with greater expandibility and lower 
cost Our a»-in price includes a full professional package with a great many refinements that 
count as extras on a lot of other famous micros. 

For a basic yet comprehensive start Franklin ACE 1 000. Compatible with the vast 
range of Apple II hardware and software. All included in the Franklin ACE 1 000 package (not 
extra): RAM Joystick/game paddle connector 

1 2-key numeric pad 50-watt power 

Alpha lock key Built-in fan ft perpetual connectors 

VimiCalc keys ACE Writer (word processor) 

72-key typewriter style keyboard, upper Er lower case 


If your needs grow to programme storage, add stand-alone Franklin ACE 1 0 floppy- 
disk dnves. twin or |ust single. They enable you to read and write all Apple II compatible 
diskettes, including VisiCalc and CP/M based programmes. Plug- in controller provides a 
complete subsystem. 

Or, upgrade your ACE with more style, simply by replacing the top cover with the 
Franklin ACE 1 1 00 housing twin floppy disk dnves and unique direct-dnve stepping motor 
A vast range of applications software is available 

But you can get it all in one fully equipped Franklin ACE 1 200. Apple II and CP/M 
compatible: 

CP/M Card trebles speed of many competitors 
Doubles RAM to 1 28K 

Doubles display capability to 80 columns (24 lines). 

Franklin ACE 1 200 has one built-in floppy disk drive and controller as standard. A second 
drive is easily added. 

To find out more about the Franklin ACE from CK Computers, return the coupon 
NOW or telephone us on (0934) 516246 

"Time", said Benjamin Franklin, "is money". So call us now. We'll send 
you details by return. Dealer enquiries welcome. 


Please send me full details of the Franklin ACE. 

NAME 

POSITION 

COMPANY 

ADDRESS 



TELEPHONE 


pc*?2,9 CK Computers Ltd. 


6 Devonia House. High Street. Worle. Weston-super-Mare. Avon. Tel: (0934) 516246 Also at: (0752) 780311. Telex: 45786 


Franklin ACE it a trademark of tha Franklin Computer Corporation Apple is a registered trademark of AptXe Computer ksc- 
Vi.iC.lc is a registered trademark of Vtti Corporation CP/M it a registered trademark of Digital Research 



Pull-out and keep 

Micropaedia 
Dragon: Part 3 


REGULARS 


Monitor 2 

BBC gels airwave software air- 
borne. page 2; Osborne crash 
leaves users in the dark, page 3; 
Cifer puts Unix on its Club, page 4. 
the Law cranks into action against 
pirates, page 5; Elan due in spring, 
page 7 ; and a look at what 's in store 
in semiconductors, page 8. 

PCN Charts 10 

Latest rise and falls in games and 
machines 

Random Access 12 

Microtan fan wins £10 Star Letter 
award 

Routine Inquiries 15 

Max Phillips answers your May Day 
calls 

Microwaves 16 

Bright ideas from fellow-readers 


Griddcr and Gloopcrt on the 64. 
page 46; Oric roundup, page 4V; 
BBC Bomb Aliev and Spectrum 
Splat, page SO; California Gold 
Rush (64) and General Election 
(Spectrum), page 52. 

Readout 55 

We cover the new books 

ProgramCards 58 

A dump utility for the BBC B and 
one to enlarge and move strings for 
both BBC's; work out your reading 
age on the Lynx; plus the final hand 
in Knockout Whist. 

Clubnet 68 

What machine reigns in Kainham? 

Databases 73 

PC/Vs software selection 

Billboard 81 

Quit/Dateline 88 


Cover photo by Muhoel Dunning 


a—an»^Ti7m^^— 

September 22-September 28, 1983 Volume 1 No 29 

The price of quality 

Next week we’ll be asking you to pay an extra 5p for PCN. Unfortunately we just cannot 
continue to provide this magazine for under 50p. No other magazine even attempts to produce 
something of this quality for so little, and when it came to a decision between lopping pages of 
PCN or upping the price by a few pence, the latter won the day. 

You won’t find anything of PCN ' s quality (and quantity) for less. But then you wouldn’t be 
reading this if you hadn’t already noticed this vital difference. And for this reason I hope you’ll 
stick with us. 


PCN SPECIALS 


HX-20 unravelled 

Elizabeth Wald presents a machine code program disassembler 
which allows you to use the 6301 mnemonics. 

Tl transformations 

If you have the memory upgrades, your 
T199/4A can be given the powerful facility 
to overwrite programs. Stephen Shaw explains 


PCN PRO TEST: HARDWARE 



18 


22 



Portico’s Miracle 26 

Max Phillips weights up the hefty Miracle 
baby and decides that Portico has got 
something special on its hands. 


PCN PRO-TEST: SOFTWARE 


Dragon edited 39 

Microplot s Editor package is more than just a program editor — it 
offers WP and DB management too. David Owen tests it in 
triplicate. 

Beebtool-up 40 

Ted Ball opens the Toolkit from Logic Systems — a machine code 
monitor/debugger for the Model B. 


PCN PRO-TEST: PERIPHERA 

LS 


Dragon’s drives 

Brian Cadge takes command of Dragon's tardy 
disk drives. 

5 


33 

1 



Light fantastic 35 

Richard King grins with idiotic pleasure at 
the amazing things the Gibson LPS II 
light-pen can do for his Apple. 


CHARACTER SET 


r* Ralph Ban, 

jar n >, h IMtafi UHh Wcndic Pearson “ 
ar Mark Eiscn ~ 

•rVll Jnncsf 
jm Eva W roblcwsk. 
aah’ Oxford Street London 


Mark s.,u h, IlSnfasax 

Jcnnv l>unnc St ‘ 

lA’HGOl-b.ViNtMUW " 


cr Wot lock Sat adNar John LcItkcNawtadRar David Gw 
ti adttar Ian Scales Faaturaa adttar Richard Kmc Pragraa 
n Dance Art Edttat David Robinson Assistant art tartar Floyd Say 
m John Cade Craup a d u rt lM a n nt manager Duncan Brown 


Sober. 

1 53 Frith Street London W1 A 2FIG 01-439 4242 Mitartai 

Street London W1 A2UGOI-32332 1 1 FaMebedhy VNU Business Publication*. Evelyn 

Home . 62 Oxford Street London W I A 2HG©VNU 1983 No material mav be reproduced in w hole cm in part without written concent from the copyright holder* Photoset by 
" ' ■“ Printed by Chase Web Offset . St Austell , Cornwall Distributed by Seymour Press, 334 Britton Road . London SW9. 01 -733 4444 


PCN SEP1EMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 








i » 11 [ '1 1 1 1 1 

BBC airs its software 


The long-awaited BBC Telcsoft- 
ware service was due to get off the 
ground this week. 

Scheduled for an official launch 
on Tuesday, the system will beam 
software across the airwaves to be 
picked up on Cccfax or adapted 
television sets and loaded into BBC 
micros. 

The BBC has called it the world's 
first tclesoftwarc service, but that 
was back in the heady days of March 
when it was planned to start in May. 
First or not . it is an ambitious plan to 
broaden the horizons of home 
computer users up and down the 
country by giving them access to the 
kind of software that they may not 
otherwise have used ( PCN , Issue 
3 ). 


If you already have a Cccfax set 
the software will be free — coming 
in through the window, in a manner 
of speaking. If you don't, you'll 
need a teletext adaptor, planned to 
sell for £225. and it has been the 
supply of these units from Acorn 
that is thought to have held up the 
service. 

The bulk of the software — 
probably two-thirds — will be 
educational and the rest will be 
general interest', mainly utilities. 
About 150K's worth will be broad- 
cast in fortnightly cycles, according 
to the BBC's original plans for the 
service Much of it will come from 
the BBC's own microelectronics 
series and from a project that 
involved the BBC. the IB A. and the 


electronics company Mullard. 
Some educational software is ex- 
pected to be commissioned in the 

Big names in the late, 

The teletext adaptors are just the 
latest in a long line of embarrassing 
delays for Acorn. I "he saga of the 
second processors for the BBC. for 
example, is still dragging on. But 
Acorn is far from being the only 
micro company having trouble 
delivering the goods Hereisashort 
round-up: 

Acorn — Z80 and 6502 second 
processors for the BBC are now 
more than a year overdue The last 
deadline they missed was August 
Acorn now suggests November or 
the new year, but whether it means 


future as the service develops. 

■ Next week we ll have a full report 
on the BBC's proposals. 

late show 

one or other or both of the 
processors is not dear Acorn's 
cartridge software was due in June 
Camputers — A 96K Lynx with disk 
drives and CP/M should have been 
launched this spring The %K 
model has appeared recently, but 
no CP/M or disks. 

Torch — The Torch 700 was proc- 
laimed with Unix available on the 
86000 card in July. Unix is proving 
difficult 

Advance - Advance's 86 IBM- 
compatible portable system was 
due in June July 


But the flat-screen will still figure 
in Sinclair's computing plans. ‘The 
flat screen tube is very much in our 
plans for the computer market.' Sir 
Clive said. 'But realistically we re 
over a year away from using the flat 
screen in portable computers ' 

And a Sinclair spokesman con- 
firmed that the ZX83 will not use 
the flat screen. But he did say that 
the ZX83 will use the Microdrives 
recently introduced for the Spec- 
trum and that the business machine 
will use a non-standard operating 
system of Sinclair's own design. 

He added that Sinclair will be 
very careful about the timing and 
nature of the launch in recognition 
of the fact that until now it has not 
been known for building business 
machines. 

Sir Clive's comment on the 
appearance of a portable with a flat 
screen a year from now also 
suggests that the ZX83 will not be a 
portable. 

Sinclair's flat screen TV uses a single integrated circuit chip to perform the 
majority of signal processing functions. The £79.95 2bi TV is the first television 
to have ail such functions controlled by a single chip. 



CRAFTY — Word processing software that has been making headway with 
Commodore owners wM soon be hot on the heels of that old warhorse, Wordstar, 
according to Wordcraft Designs of Derby. Wordcraft has produced versions of Its 
package for leading 16-bit machines such as Sirius 1, the IBM PC, and the IBM 
PC-XT. The 16- bit versions of Wordcraft are designed to use all of the keyboard 
functions available on the computers concerned. For instance, the Sirius version 
has multiple screen menus for the machine's function keys and makes full use of 
the character set. Each package costs £488 and distribution is by Dataview on 
Colchester 102061 869414. 


Flat racers 

Sinclair's new flat-screen technolo- 
gy. unveiled in the form of a pocket 
TV last Friday . is unlikely to be used 
in its upcoming small business 
micro. 

Although Sir Clive Sinclair 
hinted that the flat screen technolo- 
gy could be used with a micro, the 
timing of his hint suggests that it 
could not possibly be used in the 
business machine planned for 
launch in early 1984 



Tl threat to 99/4A cartridges 


By Chris Cunningham 

Owners of Texas home computers 
are about to gain a second supplier 
of software cartridges for their 
machines Bat trom lex.ts Instru 
ments - point of view, there may be 
doubt about how long Audiogenic 
of Reading and its American sup- 
plier can continue selling car- 
tridges 

Texas has licensed only one 
company other than itself to pro- 
duce software cartridges for the 
99/4A computer — Funware of 
Richardson. Texas. Funware sup- 
plies cartridges to its Californian 
parent company. Creative Soft- 
ware, and Creative in turn will send 
cartridges to Audiogenic for dis- 
tribution in Britain. 

However, neither Creative Soft- 
ware nor Audiogenic is a party to 


the agreement with Texas. If the 
cartridges arc sold under any name 
other than Funware. Texas may 
sue. 

Texas Instruments has had a 
monopoly on supplies of cartridges 
for the 99/4 since it introduced the 
computer in 1980. But the semicon- 
ductor giant decided to make an 
exception when, just a year ago. a 
group of its employees left to set up 
their own software company. Fun- 
ware. 

During the summer that agree- 
ment ran into complications. Crea- 
tive Software bought a controlling 
interest in Funware. and Texas was 
faced with the possibility of a third 
name on its cartridges. That would 
risk the breach of an agreement so 
strict that under one of its clauses 
Funware cannot even admit the 


document exists. 

At the Consumer Electronics 
Show in Chicago last June. Texas 
gave out veiled threats that it would 
sue any company producing soft- 
ware cartridges for the 99 4 A and a 
modified version of the 99/4A 
appears on Texas's stand. Accord- 
ing to Texas, the computer on 
display included circuitry for hold- 
ing graphics software in a special 
memory store — a buffer — before 
it is fed into the computer’s main 
memory. The computer has to do 
this because cartridges can hold up 
to 40K of memory in their graphics 
read-only memories (GROM), 
while the user memory amounts to 
just 16K. 

A spokesman for Texas's con- 
sumer division at Lubbock. Texas, 
told PCN that extra circuitry for 


handling the buffering operation 
was included in the original design 
of the 99/4 A 

That seems to be no problem for 
Funware: the company's head, 
Michael Brothers, marched up to 
the Texas stand, inserted one of his 
company's cartridges, and ran the 
program successfully. 

Funware has been producing and 
selling cartridges for the 99/4A 
since the beginning of this year. A 
spokesman for the firm said: ‘Lots 
of people were wondering why 
Texas didn't sue Funware after its 
announcement (the threat to sue) at 
Chicago. We are confident that 
they wouldn't sue.' 

Audiogenic says it will distribute 
cartridges under Funware s label, 
‘perhaps with a sticky label saying 
“Distributed by Audiogenic*’.’ 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 




Autumn crop 
from Tandy 

After the launch this summer of the 
Tandy Model 100 and Model 4 
computers, you might think the 
company would take things easy for 
a while. In fact, it will launch four 
more new products in the next 
month. 

Not only will the coming weeks 
see the arrival of the MC- 10 colour 
computer (previewed in PCN 
Monitor, issue 23), but also the 
release of a new battery-powered 
acoustic modem for the Model 1(K) 
portable, a seven-colour ink-jet 
printer and a version of the PFS 
filing system program suite. 

The cheapest of the new products 
is the PFS software suite, at £79.95. 

1 1 is closely followed by the MC -10 
priced at a Spectrum-bashing 
£99.95 (that's the base price for the 
machine). The modem will go for 
£279 95. some £200 less than the 
price of the printer, which tops the 
list at £499 

Each of the new products seems 
to have a good deal to recommend 
it The British Telecom-approved 
300-baud modem, for instance, 
operates on nickel cadmium batter- 
ies and allows the Model 10 to 
access services such as Telecom 
Gold down the phone line. The 
modem can be used with any other 
Tandy computers but with the 
Model 100 it is even more atractivc 
as it gives you an entirely portable 
phone computer terminal The 
modem weighs only 2(ku and is lOin 
long, 3'/iin wide and 2Vi deep 

The ink-jet printer also looks set 
to break new ground, with capacity 
to print seven RGB compatible 
colours at the rate of 2.300 dots per 
second. The technique is accom- 
plished with three colour ink jets, 
which mix to provide the other four 


— 


Osborne crash 


The Osborne C omputer Corpora- 
tion's crash has left UK users 
wondering whether they're left high 
and dry. Osborne UK says no. but 
the user group isn't so sure. 

Last week the company declared 
itself bankrupt, but there's still 
hope it may be salvaged because it 
has Tiled for protection under 
chapter II of the US Bankruptcy 
Code Chapter 1 1 allows the com- 
pany to continue operating with 
court protection from creditors, 
while it tries to work out its 
problems. 

This breathing space will give 
Osborne the chance to Tmd a 
possible buyer to take over the 
company and strengthen its fi- 
nances Until then, development 
of an IBM-compatible machine will 
continue. 

The plight of Osborne came as a 
shock to the American industry . but 
the shutdown follows a severe 
decline in sales of Osborne's per- 
sonal computers. This could be the 

ALL-IN-ONE — This trim little board 
harbours a Z80 with all the peripheral 
etc merits you’M now! to buMd a 


Germany, and coats $385. Besides the 
Z80 and a fwH ASCII keyboard R bas a 
16 character LCD display, up to 40b of 
CMOS RAM, up to 4GK of EPROM, one 
IEEE and two V24 interfaces. A monitor 
program Is also included In the price. 
The supplier can be corrected on 
010-49-202 510444. The system, 
called the MMC-6, also includes the 
option of an EPROM programmer 
which can be bu« in. This will handle 
2710, 2732, 2732A, and 2764 chips. 


beginning of the long anticipated 
shake-out of business computers. 

I n the U K Grundy and Dragon have 
already felt the tremors of what 
could be an eruption in the home 
computer market. 

Observers in the computer field 
have mixed reactions to Osborne's 
fate But undoubtedly it’s felt that 
Adam Osborne took too long to 
announce the successor to the 
Osborne 1 . giving other companies 
a chance to slip in and take a bite of 
the market. 

Mike llealy. of Osborne UK, 
said: 'Our operations in the UK arc 
a separate entity from that in the 
States. We will still continue to 
trade as we have secure stocks and 
there's still a lot of demand for the 
Osborne I. 

As far as we arc concerned the 
Osborne I is the only portable in 
large supply Kaypro and Compaq, 
which have hit sales of Osborne 
computers in the States, have no 
effect here. 



Pruphatlc Adam Osborn*? No, ho was 
talking about Kaypro in this July 
interview. 

'Kaypro and Compaq portables 
arc not readily available yet.’ 

Although Osborne UK doesn't 
seem to be too disturbed by events, 
the British Owners Group feels less 
secure about the situation. John 
Anglcsca of the group: 'Of course 
we feel very sad. But now we see 
ourselves as the only support for the 
Osborne 1 . 

People that are worried and feel 
that they've been left in the lurch 
can come to us. We will be able to 
act as a substitute for Osborne but 
we can't do anything about guaran- 
tees.' 



ick micros 

Manufac- 

Percentage 

Dominant fault 

turer 

Returns 


Acorn 

under 5 


*««*• 

OJ 


Atari 

— 


Computers 

originally SJ, 


Commodore 

under 1 

Knocks sustained in transit 

Draco* 




Jupiter 

5 

Power supply 

Lowe 

7.1 

Pressure on piggy-hack board 

One 




Sinclair 

5 

More than 50 per cent of 

Tandy 

Texas Instruments 

3 

systems returned are said 
not to be faulty 


As Christmas nears, home compu- 
ter makers arc looking forward to a 
bumper season But how many of 
the thousands of machines sold this 
Christmas will have to be returned 
because of faults? 

PCN asked the manufacturers of 
home computers how many of their 
machines (as a proportion of cur- 
rent output) found their way back 
during the warranty period to be 
repaired, and whether they could 
put their fingers on a main source of 
trouble 

Some of them preferred not to 
comment; Texas instruments said 
that it was well pleased with the 
reliability of its systems, and Atari 
pointed out that it had a substantial 
network of support if anything did 
go wrong with a new machine. The 
accompanying table gives the re- 
sults. 

There is no independent way to 
check these figures, and most of the 
manufacturers seemed pleased 
with their performance. But the 
view from the High Street is slightly 


different in several respects 

Ian Williams, of Dixons, said: 
‘Our impression is that it ( the rate of 
returns) is not acceptable yet. but it 
is improving. Some manufacturers 
arc worse than others. ' 

Backing up Sinclair's point he 
added: ‘There is also a problem of 
consumer understanding. We car- 
ried out a lest of our own and found 
that about 15 per cent of the 
machines coming back weren't 
actually faulty.' 

He acknowledged that the retail- 
ers bore some responsibility in this 
respect . and said that they too were 
improving. But as far as the manu- 
facturers arc concerned, there is no 
simple rule of thumb that might 
help you pick an immediately 
reliable system: 'It is not necessarily 
dependent on the age of the 
manufacturer or the maturity of the 
machine,’ said Mr Williams. 'Some- 
times it varies according to such 
factors as where they arc buying 
their components .’ 

On one point he was categorical: 


People have got to get used to 
micros — making them, selling 
them, and using them.' 

Some manufacturers are not 
included in the list. Mattel, for 


example, has only recently laun- 
ched the Aquarius, and similarly 
Sharp with the MZ700. Future 
issues of PCN will update the table 
to look at their performance. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 



liMJMMil 



VIEW FROM JAPAN 


Japan Inc 
tools up 
in English 


article on the boat-soiling business software packages to bo found in 
Tokyo’s top ton computer stores. 

Not surprisingly, Japanese word processing packages wore far and 
away tba winners, attbougti there was no dear-cut champion, since the 
programs tend to be exclusive to the disk operating systems of each 
hardware manufacturer. The popularity of WordStar was particularly 
surprising, in spite of the fad that many of the units are built around a 
Z80 or Z80 equivalent processor. But in Tokyo an incredible amount of 
material is generated in English, this being the principal language used 


This adds up to a staggering pile of service manuals, owners’ guides, 
and advertising material, not to mention trade and financial 
correspondence. But WordStar was not alone; dBase II is also popular. 
Ashton Tate’s package turned up not only in the august company of this 
Bst but also in a survey of the best-seling CP/M packages — to and 
behold, it led the field, and thereby hangs a tale. 

According to Bill Smale, general manager of a major Japanese 
software house called JSE International, which distributes d8ase II in 
east Asia, the dBase II sold in Japan is not exactly the dBase II sold 
elsewhere. Like other foreign products that succeed here H has been 
modified to accept Japanese Kanji in addition to the Roman letters and 
Arabic numerate M normaBy deals with. This is accomplished by gMag R 
the capability of addressing the Kanji ROM in personal computers with a 
Japanese word processor, and It adds less than $100 to the cost of the 


At its simplest level this means that companies that generate lists in 
— Ford Japan, for example, with its part numbers, 
— need to make the numerical entry once only, 
of fttfdi for descriptions In belli 
either can be printed out as required. 

When you consider that it is also possible to provide for such factors 
as currency conversion, the popularity of dBase II here really begins to 
make sense. At a more significant level It means that custom-software 
programmers in Japan have a powerful tool, thanks to dBase ll's 
applications development capabilities. Also that CP/M, which until 
much of an impact to Japan, wM find 
— — in 

fact, running against the tide of exclusivity, Japanese language-based 
word processors have recently started to appear for CP/M systems, and 
they are beginning to enjoy the kind of popularity more usually 
associated with general WP systems in the west. 

It isn’t difficult to extrapolate from that particular point. DBase II 
wouldn’t win any prizes for the World's Easiest To Use Software, but 
here H is, ahead of the field in Japan, and performing usefully in more 
than one language. Some of its detractors — Ashton Tait's detractors, 
perhaps— say that H is inscrutable enough in English. Think bow well a 
truly user-friendly piece of software might perform. Japanese eyes 


There could be an opening for English software producers in this, 
especiaRy for anybody producing high -quality CP/M-based business 
software, if the programs are amenable to handle Kanji. For that matter 
anyone writing for MSDOS I PC DOS w HI mean very little hero; the IBM 
5550 has seen to that) or CP/M86 should find a greater potential 
market for their products. 

In this regard JSE International's Mr Smale has offered to evaluate 
software that his company feels would be appropriate to this market. 
Among the specifics, he mentions that vertically integrated 
don’t do well here, while database and fil 
packages and the like should go down weN. 

JSE International's address is 9FToyo Buildings, 6-12-20 Jingumae, 
Shivuya-Ku, Tokyo 150. 


Cifer’s trump 


By David Guest 

The race lo implement Unix on a 
British-built micro has been won by 
Cifer. The Wiltshire-based firm 
began shipping Unix on 68000 cards 
in J uly to test sites and geared up for 
commercial deliveries at the start of 
this week. 

Cifer announced its implementa- 
tion of Unix in May. a month after 
the launch of its flagship Gub 
business micro. The Club — or for 
that matter Cifer’s 2880 series — 
can be upgraded to run Unix and 
Cifer has put together a support 
package to back up the operating 
system. 

‘We are very aware that you can’t 
just offer a Unix machine.’ said 
Cifer's Peter Readman He added 
that 40 per cent of the effort of 
producing the Unix system had 
gone into finding software (compil- 
ers. database management sys- 
tems. word processors and some 
applications) to run on it . ‘There's a 
lot out there if you look in the right 
place,’ he commented. 

It has also instituted a software 
maintenance package and support 
in the form of manuals and training 
courses 

The Unix that Cifer is using is 
Unisoft's Uniplus, a full system 3.0 
with some enhancements. The 
board is built around an 8MHz 
Motorola MC68000 with 256K of 
RAM and memory management 
routines. You can field-upgrade an 
8-bit system or specify what hard- 



Cllar's CM -tatttn* Unix in. 

ware you want when you place an 
order. 

A Cifer with an 800K floppy, a 
10Mb hard disk, and the Unix/ 
68000 card will cost close to £5,000. 

If your requirements are more 
modest, the implementation of 
CP/M Plus on a Cifer system won’t 
cost you any more than the original 
price of the machine. Cifer has just 
announced this as an advance on 
CP/M 2.2. which it has supplied as 
standard on the Gub and other 
systems. CPM Plus comes with 
additional user memory. Cifer utili- 
ties. and Digital Research’s GSX- 
80 graphics package. 

Nor is this the last of Cifer’s 
activities for the time being. The 
company intends to launch a new 
machine at Compcc later this year, 
and it is due to add Boss and the 
UCSD p-System to its O/Ss. 

Cifer has a bread-and-butter 
business in terminals, and is anti- 
cipating a turnover of around £8.2 
million for its latest financial 
year. 


Seven Stars 
jogs Nascom 

The days of slow assembling and 
lengthy lists of returned errors on 
Nascom computers may be over. 
Seven Stars Publishing of Camden, 
London, has introduced a version 
of the fast Z80-bascd assembler. 


Gener-80, for the machines 
Gencr-80 handles source code at 
high speed and returns errors in 
code interactively. (The Nascom ’s 
assembler normally chews its way 
through whatever the user types in, 
then returns a list of error mes- 
sages.) The full-screen editor in- 
cluded in the £9.95 package in- 
cludes commands for creating 
source files and text-editing 


Gamesters put in plot mode 


As if fighting off ranks of cosmic 
muggers wasn't enough, games 
hackers arc now faced by the 
prospect of helping word-blind 
sci-fi authors through the last few 
pages of their novels, or (even 
worse) taking exercise. 

Mosaic Publishing of Islington, 
London, will begin publishing 
packages of games programs books 
by the likes of sci-fi author Harry 
Harrison in the new year. 

The games will follow scenes 
from the books and will give players 
the chance to decide the ending of a 
book. There are no points for 
addicts of the more violent space 
games who solve a mystery by 
killing off the whole cast of charac- 
ters. 

And when that novel approach to 
games software has drained a 
player's intellectual stamina, there 



is always a nice relaxing jog through 
the woods — an armchair-bound 
jog, that is. Phipps Associates of 
Ewell, Surrey has launched The 
Forest, an exercise in orienteering 
( a form of Scandinavian torture) for 
player and Spectrum. The game 
leads the player along scenic paths 
and offers hazards such as falling in 
the lake. It gives a new meaning to 
the command RUN. 

Phipps is on 01 -393 0283. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 






Ml^— — — — I in 1 1 i i Ml 1 1 1 1 1 1 i I— — 

Crackdown on piracy 


Arc you the sort of person who buys 
a software package, then sends a 
copy whistling through a modem to 
your mate's micro? Well watch it. 
The combined might of Westmins- 
ter and Brussels is ganging up to put 
a stop to your little game and every 
copy of the game you try to 
produce. 

In short, the parliaments of 
Britain and the European Econo- 
mic Community arc turning their 
legislative minds towards a version 
of copyright law covering computer 
software. Although precedent in 
British courts weighs heavily 
against commercial bodies sus- 
pected of software piracy, the 
majority of copiers may well have a 
few years' grace waiting for a 
common policy on software copy- 
right in the EEC. These things do 
not happen overnight. 

But this week, the copyright 


committee of the British Computer 
Society will set in motion an attempt 
to introduce a private member s Bill 
to amend the current laws of 
copyright The committee is pre- 
senting a draft Bill to the society's 
technical board. 

If the document (and an explana- 
tory memo) receives the board's 
approval, it will then pass to the 
Parliamentary Information Tech- 
nology Committee (PITCOM), 
under the supervision of Lord 
Lloyd of Kilgarran. An MP may 
then take up the Bill — in effect, an 
amendment — for introduction to 
Parliament, perhaps in the next 
session. 

Bob Hart, chairman of the BCS's 
copyright committee, told PCS 
‘We would like to amend the 
current Act to ensure that copyright 
would extend to software prog- 
rams. making them alternative ex- 


pressions of a literary work. We are 
hoping we can get an MP's support 
to put forward that type of amend- 
ment.' 

The Copyright Act of 1956. 
Britain's own interpretation of the 
Beme Convention, is already a 
patchwork of amendments . But the 
BCS clearly believes it is time some 
formal legislation covered soft- 
ware Mr Hart admits that there are 
some very fine arguments to be 
made in comparing programs to 
literature, and many parliamentary 
lawyers would like to see the whole 
Act redrawn. 

Nonetheless, the High Court 
tends to make decisions in favour of 
the plaintiffs in cases of software 
piracy. But no actual judgment has 
yet been made. Instead, according 
to the Computer Retailers’ Asso- 
ciation. an Anton Pillar decision' 
has enabled a plaintiff in three cases 


to break into the defendant's pre- 
mises and take away any possible 
incriminating evidence 
The impetus for the BCS's move 
came from a meeting of the World 
Intellectual Property Organisation 
and the United Nations Education- 
al. Scientific and Cultural Orga- 
nisation in Geneva last June. The 
eventual finding of the meeting set 
up to consider software copyright 
was that the problem should be 
couched in existing copyright law 
Some of the legal and technical 
experts looking at the problem for 
the European Commission in Brus- 
sels think this is a strange attitude. 

One question arising might be: 
docs translating a program from, 
say. Fortran toCobol constitute the 
same problem as producing a pirate 
Spanish edition of an English 
novel? 

At the moment, it does not. 


Rair Basic 

Digital Research's answer to Basic- 
86. Personal Basic, has found its 
way on to a UK-produced micro by 
courtesy of Rair 

Rair, the source of ICL’s Person- 
al Computer, will implement Per- 
sonal Basic under CP/M86 and 
MP/M86on its Business Computer 
The software is written in BCPL 
and needs roughly 43K of memory. 

Rair's Business Computer will 
have no trouble accommodating it. 
with its maximum 1Mb of memory 
and concurrent 8-bit and 16-bit 
processors. The company says that 
this choice will suit the Personal 
Basic package, with its emphasis on 
program development. 

One of the UK's best-established 
micro makers, Rair has been going 
through changes recently that have 
brought a fresh injection of capital, 
a strengthening of its dealer net- 
work, and the hiving off of its 
terminal business. 

RTS Technology has been 
formed to take on the terminals, 
which at the moment include pro- 
ducts from suppliers like Centro- 
nics, Qumc. IBM. Texas Instru- 
ments and Hazeltinc. The com- 
pany's managing director Robert 
Mountain said that RTS intends 
eventually to sell complete systems, 
not necessarily built by Rair. 



RTS managing director Bob Mountain. 


Mattel drops 
price of RAM 

Aquarius users who couldn't afford 
tobuythe 16K RAM expansion unit 
can now pick one up from Mattel for 

£29.95. 

Originally the RAMpack was 
selling at £49.95 but considering 
that the Aquarius costs £79.95 the 
add-on seemed a bit expensive. 
Michael Lunch of Mattel said: ‘We 
did a test market and found that 
compared to other expansion units 
ours was expensive — so we took 
£20 off.' 

With only 4K of R A M in the basic 
machine the system can be ex- 
panded to a possible 52K to write 
bigger programs 

The RAMpack is available from 
High Street stores and through 
some mail order catalogues. 



COU) FRAME — This is the MukBus Card Frame System that might encourage 
your Sued rum to grew up. At £59.95 the unit plugs onto the Spectrum's 
edge-connector and fully buffers the signal Hoes onto a sis -slot motherboard. At 
the moment the unR as It stands doesn't do much, but by November there should 
be a range of printed circuit cards, including floppy dish, RS2 32/Cent ronics, 
80-column video, 648 page-mapped memory and bar-code reader Interfaces. A 
power supply is also evaHabie at £59.95. Contact Microtext UK. 0582-418894. 


Compushack trio in UK 


Another three IBM compatibles 
have made it to the UK just in time 
to catch the bandwagon 

The machines are produced by 
the Tava Corporation, which owns 
the American retail chain Com- 
pushack English systems house 
Paperlogic has bcomc the Euro- 
pean end of the Compushack 
franchise and has brought the new 
machines with it. 

The Tava desktop PC looks like 
an IBM and costs like an Apple Itis 
PC -compatible and comes without 
disk drives, but with 64K, a printer 
port and two serial ports for £999. 
Compushack estimates that a twin 
320K disk system could be put 
together for around £1 .500. though 
you would still have to buy operat- 
ing software either from IBM ( DOS 


2 costs £51) or from Digital Re- 
search (CP/M86 is £42). It looksasif 
the dramatic price lead set up by the 
yet-to-bc-dclivcred Advance 86 is 
already eroded. 

The Tava portable is a less 
dramatic proposition — production 
models will weigh around 32lbs and 
cost £2.199 But you get a 256K 
system with twin 320K floppies, 
IBM graphics and a lOin screen. 
Compushack w ill supply the system 
with CP/M 86 and a Basic, though 
Concurrent CP/M86 may be sup- 
plied by the time the system is 
actually available. 

The third and as yet unseen 
system is a twin processor machine 
designed for networking. It is 
claimed to be IBM-compatible and 
the price has yet to be fixed 


Availability of all three systems is 
not expected for the next two 
months. Compushack can be con- 
tacted on 0 1 -935 0480 
■ Paperlogic took the opportunity 
at its IBM-compatible launch to 
announce a range of low-cost disk 
drives for the BBC micro. Ihe 
drives come in a very complete 
package with cabling, casing, disk 
interface and Kenda Software's 
DMFS. plus a free disk as standard. 
The disk interface is claimed to be 
really easy to fit, the 11 chips 
necessary coming in a plug-in 
module rather than as separate 
chips. 

Prices, including VAT, are: 100K 
— £239.95. 400 K — £389.95 and 
twin 400K — £649.95. Paperlogic is 
on 01-935 0480. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1963 




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PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 


JiMW.ltKIHiEl 


Spring-loaded Elan 


Elan Computers has launched its 
£2(10 wonder micro in the best 
British tradition. The machine 
beats all home computers (and 
many business machines) on paper 
but won't be available until April. 

The Elan Enterprise startsoff asa 
64K, Z80- based micro in a stylish 
case with a full keyboard and 
built-in joystick. A series of custom 
chips provides dramatic abilities. 

Graphics can be up to a resolu- 
tion of 672 x 5 12 with 256 colours. 
Text can be displayed in various 
formats up to H4 columns by 56 
lines. There are obvious practical 
limits imposed by memory size but 
the Elan will let you freely mix 
modes' on the screen. It is. in 
theory, possible to emulate the 
screens of all popular micros, 
although the Elan has no hardware 
sprite ability as standard. 

Sound is provided with four 
voices over eight octaves in stereo. 
It is reproduced either through the 
TV or Walkman-stylc headphones. 
Full control of envelopes and 
volumes is. of course, available. 

Standard interfaces arc twin cas- 
sette ports, twin joystick ports, a 
printer port and serial port Ihe 
machine can drive either a TV or 


quality monitor and hi-fi. The serial 
interface also provides a network 
capability which will be based on a 
simple three-wire system. 

The machine can be expanded up 
to 128K internally and allows ROM 
cartridges of up to 64K to be 
plugged in. Beyond that, you’ll 
need a special expansion system 
nicknamed The Stack - This allows 
you to expand RAM and ROM to 
3.9Mb (shades of the Newbrain). 

The Stack also allows you to 
connect the Elan's twin Sony mic- 


rofloppy disk drives and any future 
add-ons that are produced. In the 
words of Elan, the system isn't 
'future proof, it has ‘obsolescence 
built out'. 

But hardware is only half the 
story. Elan is a new company 
formed as an offshoot of UK 
software house Intelligent Soft- 
ware. The Elan is the first machine 
to be announced with a new ANSI 
standard Basic. 

This is a full Basic with many 
additions to allow for structured 


and large programs Elan's version 
has full support for all the hardw arc 
goodies. The machine also has a 
'word processor’ in its ROM. 

In short, the Elan appears to be 
the sophisticated yet affordable 
product that people have been 
waiting for. As a micro, its spec is 
miles ahead of contemporary sys- 
tems. But then, so is its delivery 
date. Elan is confident that there 
will be nothing to match it by April 
— 18 months have already been 
spent on development. 



Failing funds 
force club to 
close doors 

A software club set up to sell 
cut-price commercial packages to 
its members has run into financial 
difficulty and dosed its doors. 

The Microcomputer Software 
Club, which has been in operation 
for eight months, has 32.000 mem- 
bers on its books, but it has grown 
too big for its own good. 


The club could only generate a 
small trading income It wasn't 
making enough money to pay off 
the interest on funds loaned to set it 
up. 

To get the club back on its feet 
would have needed £'/« million. A 
spokeswoman for the club said: 

Members who've sent money to 
the dub to buy software will be 
given a refund. At the moment the 
process is slow. 

‘As far as we can see this side of 
our operations will be dosed down 
indefinitely — but we re always 
hopeful.' 


Sirius maker 
hits problems 


Severe cutbacks at Victor Tech- 
nologies in the US will not affect 
British supplies of the Sirius, 
according to ACT. the computer's 
sole distributor in Britain. But 
Victor’s staff reductions of over 40 
per cent will probably force ACT to 
spread its choice of American 
distributing companies for its own 
Apricot computer early next year. 

In the past month. Victor has 
shed about 1.200 jobs, following 
heavy losses earlier in the year. The 
Americans blame slack business in 
Europe during the summer for their 
recent performance. According to 
Roger Foster. ACTs managing 
director. ‘Victor has expanded so 


fast it has developed too many 
overheads too quickly.’ 

Because of problems arising from 
Victor’s unwieldy distribution net- 
work. ACT 'might look elsewhere' 
to handle some of the business for 
Apricot, the Birmingham firm's 
portable 16-bit computer 

The American launch of Apricot 
will take place at the end of 
November at the Comdex show in 
Las Vegas. Supplies to the Amer- 
ican market will not be in full swing 
until January. 

Mr Foster told PCS that by that 
time ACT could well be handling 
many of its sales through leading 
systems houses in the US. 


Business soft at Sharp end 


Business users who own a Sharp 
3541 and feel bogged down by 
figures could look at a package 
called Kumacount I 

Primarily pitched at retail stores, 
the program has three main sec- 
tions. The sales section can be used 
by sales staff for selling, receiving 
slock, recording takings and check- 
ing understocked items. 

The management section aims to 


equip the retailer with everything 
he needs to know about his busi- 
ness. covering such items as im- 
mediate stock values and stocktak- 
ing, individual item sales data, and 
help with mark-up. The purchase 
part of the program covers slock 
purchases and expenses. 

The package costs £454.25 and is 
available from Kuma Computers. 
0628 71778. 


WH Smith 
takes plunge 
into hardware 

WH Smith has joined the ranks of 
the manufacturers with its own 
computer-compatible cassette re- 
corder 

Selling at 09.95 the recorder, 
called the CPD-8300. works with 
any computer that loads and saves 
programs using standard mic- 
rophone and earphone sockets. It 
can also be used for normal record- 
ing and play-back of pre-recorded 
cassette tapes. 

The CPD-8300 is bigger than 
conventional cassette recorders 
and isn’t battery operated. Howev- 
er. it offers little extras which the 
company says are more useful. 

The Save and Load levels on the 
machine arc adjustable and stabil- 
ised. and can both be controlled by 
the level set control to eliminate 
problems often experienced when 


Saving on cassette recorders with 
only automatic electronic level 
control. 

A speaker function switch allows 
speaker control in off/monitor/ 
sound Amp modes, and automa- 
tic isolation of Save and Load 
sockets to prevent hum loops. 

The CPD-8300 comes with a 
year's guarantee and will be avail- 
able in WH Smith shops from 
September 27. 



WM Smith’s first flap in own-brand 
hardware, tho CPD-8300. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 



ascEEZiEiai 


Chips to shrink 


PCN confidently predicts that the 
chips of the near future will be small 
squares of silicon, packaged in 
oblong pieces of plastic. But in an 
industry with no certainties greater 
than that, IBM releases a steady 
flow of experimental devices, some 
of which might just give a clue to 
future design in the semiconductor 
business 

One brainchild from IBM's 
sprawling research centres that is 
causing a stir (and. by the law of 
averages, might just lead to a 
commercial product) is a 5I2K 
RAM That is. a volatile memory 
chip loaded with more than hall a 
million cells for storing the Is and 0 
of machine code — the final form of 
youreffortsin Basic, bugs allowing. 

More interesting than the storage 
capacity of the new chip is the 
design technique that could pack 
more bits into less silicon — the 
constantly receding touchstone of 
integrated circuit designers. 

On the face of it. IBM's half- 
megabit memory has advanced to 
nowhere; it has twice the surface 
area of a chip with half the slot age 


capacity (a 256K RAM). However, 
a comparison between a prototype 
chip and a production device is not 
really fair IBM says it has not yet 
started to scale down its new 
technology 

This technology is called ‘plate 
pushing' and gets half of its name 
from one of the bask components of 
a memory cell. 

Each bit in a memory is held in a 
‘one-device' cell. In fact, just to 
confuse matters, there arc two 
devices in a cell — a transistor to 
amplify an electrical signal, and the 
electronic equivalent of a capacitor . 
a storer of charge. 

A simple capacitor comprises' 
two surfaces, or plates*, of con- 
ducting material, scpaiatcd by a 
poor conductor (. harge builds up 
on one plate until it is large enough 
to jump the non-conducivc gap. 
When a capacitor in a memory cell 
discharges, it has to be refreshed so 
that a charge ( to describe a binary 1 , 
say) is more or less always present . 

Problc ms arise in shrm king me m - 
ory cells for two reasons. First, 
alpha particles from a chip's pack- 


zip through the 
silicon, leaving behind a trail of 
electrical charges that arc compara- 
ble with the legitimate, program- 
med charges that describe bits of 
computer data 

The result can be a fouled-up 
program. 

Second, a very small charge 
representing a bit might simply fail 
to register when a computer's 
processor searches for data. 

The size of the charge in storage 
cells has to be high enough to make 
the 'soft errors' of alpha particles 
insignificant IBMscnginccrshave 
done this by feeding a booster' 
charge to each memory cell. In 
effect . the boost gives the capacitor 
plates an extra push — at what cost 
in terms of extra power consump- 
tion IBM is loathe to say 

But the Americans say that the 
size of the charge registering a bit at 
the current geometrical limits of 
memory design is doubled in plate- 
pushing devices. That should give 
them leeway for the next round of 
memory -shrinking which is already 
under way. 



SOFT BEAR — The well-known star of TV and books, Paddington Bear, is moving 
into a now carom in homo computing. Cokins has put togatfcor a series of 
packages that put Paddington adventures on the Spectrum. Each pack contains 
a Paddington storybook accompanied by a cassette containing five programs 
which will educate as we* as entertain. A book nftb a set of programs coats £8. 1 0 
and the software runs on the 4BK Spectrum. Written for four-ti 


the titles include Paddington's Shopping Mh-Up. Paddington’s Early VMt, 
Paddington's Picture Problems and Paddington and the Disappearing Ink. The 


Mobile micro from Sharp 


The new Sharp portable computer 
— the PC 5000 - will be making its 
first public appearance at the Inter- 
national Business Show in Birming- 
ham next month. 

The 16-bit machine has an 8088 
processor, 128K of RAM expand- 
able to 256K. liquid crystal display, 
a querty keyboard and MS-DOS 
operating system 
Weighing 1 1 .02 lbs the PC50U0 is 
pitched at business users who travel 
a lot. as it can be used on a plane, 
train or ear powered by a recharge- 
able battery Not only can it be used 
as a stand-alone machine , it can also 
be connected to a host computer 
Sharp says the micro should sell 


for about £1.500 and 
available early 1984. And in addi- 
tion to its basic features other 
options include a 128K bubble 
memory, a printer and a modem or 
acoustic coupler which enables the 
user to gain access to data bases 
anywhere, renew programs and 
obtain current financial informa- 
tion. 

Another new machine to be 
shown at the show is the MZ3541 
business computer, which has full 
colour graphics, built in floppy disk 
drives and an RS2J2 interface. The 
computer will be linked to the new 
seven colour ink jet printer and will 
come with Peachtree software. 


Epson moves 
in printer 
price war 

The price war seems to have caught 
up with peripherals — if you're 
shopping around for a dot matrix 
device. Epson has knocked 10 per 
cent off its range. 

The company says it has been 
able to make these reductions 
because of improved production 
techniques You can now pick up an 
MX 100 for £546.25. an RX HOT at 
£320.85. an FX-80 at £503.70. an 
RX-80 FT at £366.85. and an 
FX-100 at £654.35 


Software 
prop for ZX81 

The ZX8 1 may be on its last legs i 
the High Street but Sinclair is 
contihuing to put out software for it . 

The latest batch, for the Spec- 
trum as well, includes arcade 
games, programming aids, a logic 
puzzle and — perhaps suggested by 
Sir Clive himself, as president of 
Mensa — a home IO test . 

Sinclair's managing director 
Nigel Scarlc has described software 
development as a high priority at 
Sinclair; but two of the new pro- 
ducts should make a better prog- 
rammer of you. Monitor & Dis- 
assembler translates machine code 
into assembly language instructions 
to let you examine the Basic ROM. 
and Zeus Assembler is designed to 
simplify machine code program- 
ming 

The IO test iscalled Cat tell, and it 
runs on the 48K Spectrum. Ihc 
logic puzzle is Flippit. and the 
games arc Chequered Flag and 
MotherShip — racing and time- 
warping respectively 

The cassette-based software 
costs from £4.95 to £12.95 and 
should be in the shops soon. 


Finger on 
the Triga 

A new joystick called Triga Com- 
mand has arrived from the US. 

Designed with a pistol grip, it has 
a heavyweight base with three 
optional suction cups which the 
company says won't budge in the 
heat of the moment. 

With the firing button placed on 
the front side of the grip handle. 
Triga Command offers many of the 
standard features of other joys- 
ticks 

The device comes with an inter- 
face and costs £21.49 for the 
Spectrum and £ 1 4 . 49 for the Vic 20. 
Commodore 64. Atari 400/HUU and 
VCS. Contact Datcl Electronics. 
0782 273815 


M20 quad disk 

Olivetti's marathon running M20 support the drives and it will be 
business system has been given new supplied as standard on all M20 


memory with the addition of quad- 
density disks. 

Earlier versions of the M20 and 
I60K and 320K floppies and the 
option of an 1 1 Mb hard disk Ihe 
new quad-density units offer 640K 
of unformatted storage. 

Olivetti (01-785 6666) is incor- 
porating the new drives in packaged 
configurations. A typical set-up. 


systems sold from now on. Any 
software written for the smaller 
systems will run under it, the 
company says, and several extra 
features come with it. 

These include a graphics dump 
routine for the Olivetti PR2300 
ink-jet printer and extra facilities in 
utility programs, plus an optional 
display of control characters to help 


called the M20-O. will include the you develop communications 
machine and two quad-density If you already run an M20 with 
drives, at a price of £3,214. With the smaller floppies it won't be 
one 640 K unit and the hard disk the possible to upgrade to the quad- 
M20-HQ clucks in at £5.284. density units, but an Olivetti 

A new release of Olivetti’s Pro- spokesman said it might be possible 
fcssional Computer Operating Sys- to persuade your dealer to offer you 
tern PCOS has been issued to a trade-in deal 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTHMBER 28. 1983 


50 AMAZING GAMES 
FOR YOUR 
16/48K SPECTRUM 
AND ZX81 

Due to the success of this amazing games tape, 
we can now offer it direct to you at an equally 
amazing saving of £2.00. 

Now only £6.99 each 

This tape cannot be purchased anywhere else 
and must not be confused with inferior games 
from any other source. 


1 0 games for 1 6/48K Spectrum only £3.00 

Defender for 48K Spectrum only £2.50 

Kong for Spectrum only £5.00 


All prices include post and packing. 

We require arcade quality games for the 
Spectrum, and can offer up to 50% royalties for 
the right games. Please send your game at once 
for immediate attention. 

All orders sent within 3 working days. 

Post your cheque or postal order quickly to 
avoid disappointment to: 

JANC0 SOFTWARE™, 1 

25 C0RSEWALL STREET, COATBRIDGE ML5 IPX 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 2*. I<»3 





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All other duplicating houses 
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The result? 

Greatly improved reliability 
in data transfer rates from 300 to 
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All formats catered for. Quan- 
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ROSLIN SQUARE 
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ACTON, LONDON W3 
TEL: 01-993 2134 
TELEX: 21879 


PCN Charts 


This top 30 games list is compiled from both independent and multiple sources across 
the nation. It reflects what's happening in high streets in the two weeks up to September 
1 and, like the micro charts, does not take account of mail order sales. The micro charts 
this week show the number of machines sold in the two-week period ending one week 
before publication date, so they tell the story in the high street between September I and 
September 15. 


GAMES 


Top Thirty 


LLAMASOFTI! 

awesome games software 


VIC 20 
ATARI 


CBM 64 

SPECTRUM 


HOW IN BOOTS. LASKEYS i MANY RETAILERS OR FROM 
49 MT PLEASANT. TAOLEY. HANTS 

TEL. 07356 4478 


▲ 

1 

(4) 

GAME TITLE 

Horace and the 

PUBLISHER 

Psion 

MACHINE 

Spectrum 

PRICE 

£5.95 

▲ 

2 

(10) 

Spiders 

Penetrator 

Melbourne 

Spectrum 

£6.95 

▼ 

3 

(1) 

Manic Miner 

Bug Byte 

Spectrum 

£6.00 

▼ 

4 

(2) 

Jet-Pack 

Ultimate 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

5 

(6) 

3D Tanx 

DK Tronics 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

▼ 

6 

(3) 

Flight 

Psion 

Spectrum 

£5.95 

► 

7 

(7) 

Arcadia 

Imagine 

Vic 20 

£5.50 

A 

8 

(10) 

The King 

Microdeal 

Dragon 

£8.00 

A 

9 

(11) 

Gridrunner 

Llamasofl 

Vic 20 

£8.50 

A 

10 

(14) 

Kong 

Ocean 

Spectrum 

£5.90 

A 

11 

(17) 

Heathrow ATC 

Hewson 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

12 

(19) 

Football Manager Addictive 

Spectrum 

£5.95 

► 

13 

(13) 

Mad Martha 

Mikrogen 

Spectrum 

£6.00 

A 

14 

(20) 

Time Gate 

Quicksilva 

Spectrum 

£6.95 

A 

IS 

(— ) 

Spawn of Evil 

DK Tronics 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

16 

(— ) 

Wacky Waiters 

Bug Byte 

Spectrum 

£6.00 

A 

17 

(26) 

Harrier Attack 

Martech 

Oric 

£5.95 

T 

18 

(5) 

AH Diddums 

Imagine 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

19 

(30) 

Nightflight 

Hewson 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

20 

(27) 

Battle of Britain 

Microsimulations 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

21 

(29) 

Zoom 

Imagine 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

22 

(28) 

Matrix 

I.lamasoft 

Vic 20 

£8.50 

A 

23 

(— ) 

Pool 

CDS 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

A 

24 

(— ) 

Dictator 

DK Tronics 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

▼ 

25 

(23) 

Monsters in Hell 

Softek 

Spectrum 

£6.95 

A 

26 

(— ) 

Zip Zap 

Imagine 

Spectrum 

£5.50 

▼ 

27 

(12) 

Jumpin Jack 

Imagine 

Spectrum 

£5.90 

V 

28 

(15) 

Terror Daktil 4D 

Melbourne 

Spectrum 

£5.95 

A 

29 

(— ) 

3D Combat 

Artie 

Spectrum 

£5.95 

A 

30 

(— ) 

Frantic 

Imagine 

Vic 20 

£5.50 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 19K3 






PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28. 19R3 





Please inform Mr J Nixon of 
Pinner. Middlesex that the 
price of printers is entirely in my 
hands. The price will drop 
sharply 48 hours after I have 
bought one. 

D S Coleman 
Devizes, Wilts 


Keeping Microtan 
alive and kicking 


Up till now I have resisted the 
temptation to write to any 
magazine on my favourite sub- 
ject of computing but I'mafraid 
your article this week Raising 
Microtan ( PCN issue 26), has 
spurred me into action! 

Pd lik<- to take issue withGE 
Chkiantz by saying that the 
Microtan is not dead and isn't 
likely to be when there arc 3 .000 
users and enthusiasts out there 
already and are all keen and 
staunch supporters of the 
Tangerine Users Group 
(TUG). Being an active mem- 
ber myself, and recipient of the 
excellent monthly newsletter 
(which seems togetbetterevery 
month). I’d like to send a little 
praise in the direction of the 
leader of our merry band of 
men, namely Mr Bob Green, 
without whose help, the Micro- 
tan 65 system would have died 
long ago 



I hate to disillusion the 
obviously sincere efforts of 
Microtanic but I'm afraid they 
seem to be barking up the 
wrong tree. Our Group (TUG) 
has had an 80 column card for 
the M'tan for getting on for a 
year now, in the shape of the 
VDU 8(V82 card and consider- 
ing its power (independent 
processor driven) is excellent 
value for money, and can be 
bought in kit form, which keeps 
the original spirit of this type of 
system going. I use my system 
for work and play and have yet 
to find another computer which 
can offer me the same facilities 
in so flexible a package and at so 
flexible a price. That’s the 
beauty of it. It can cost as much 
or as little as you like. 

The reason that I praise TUG 
and its efforts is quite simple. 


RANDOM* 

Ufcrtb SIB 




MmsB 




Don’t carry a LOAD on your shoulders, 
unburden yourself on PCN ' s letters page. 


Whilst Mr Green does get 
involved in commercial pro- 
ducts — we buy them — he has 
always tried his hardest to give 
the members value for money. 

Probably the best example of 
this was our first serious hard- 


All's fair at 
computer fairs 


I refer to your article in PCN 
Issue 25 on your reporter’s visit 
ware project .the Programable to the last ZX Microfair held at 
Graphics Module (PGM). This Alexandra Palace on August 
card to me epitomises all that is 20. and his observation that the 
good about user group type exhibitors are there to make 
projects where everyone gets money, 
involved and everyone even- Money? What money? Did 
tually benefits. It provided us your reporter see Imagine. Bug 
with all the things that TCS’s Byte, Psion. Artie or Silver- 
high definition card could and soft? I cannot believe that if real 
with added bonus of user de- money was involved they would 
fined graphics. On top of that it pass up such an opportunity to 
only used up one K of memory compete for a share, 
and with it’s associated Toolkit PDQ Software has exhibited 
(written by a group member) at the last five Microfairs and 
easily outperforms anything yes, it has grown from a collcc- 
else I have seen on this system, tion of disorganised enthusiasts 
P Wellon, to an almost fully blown exhibi- 

Margate, Kent tion — as indeed has the home 

computer business. However, 
this new sophistication has not 
affected the attitudes of the 
exhibitors or the expectations 
I very much hope that, in spite of the visitors. Advice often 
of the apparent collapse of sought is freely and (sometimes 
Grundy Business Systems, at length) courteously given, 
which makes Newbrain home even though it may be quite 
computers, you will continue to unconnected with the products 
provide articles and support for on display. After all. we all 
this machine in your excellent share the same interest. 


Anxious Newbrain 


magazine. I have come to 
depend upon your information 
for an understanding of how the 
Newbrain works — and I have 
still some way to go! 

David Dawson Taylor 
Fare ham, Hants 

Our news team has kept you up 
to date with the Grundy saga and 
will, of course, continue to do 
so. Meanwhile we'll carry on 
featuring the Newbrain in our 
pages to help all of you make the 
most of your micro — Ed. 


Yes, a degree of ‘roll up. roll 
up’ does exist, but it has to be 
remembered that stands, 
space , staff, display material etc 
all have to be paid for and must , 
if we are to exhibit in future, be 
earned .ind paid for by the 
show. 

To date, no alternative facil- 
ity exists for interested Sinclair 
owners to see, try, discuss and 
— dare I say — purchase such a 
mixed and varied range of 
products and ideas for their 
computer all under one roof. 


Such a facility users of other 
micros would dearly love to 
have. 

How about PCN and PCW 
sponsoring a number of stands 
at the next ZX Microfair for 
schools, clubs and non- 
commercial organisations? 
John W Weston 
PDQ Software, Kent 

Now there's an idea . . . why 
not a roll-up, roll-up, get your 
PCNs and free advice here! 
Good plan — Ed. 


BBC lacks the 
educational packs 


I have owned my BBC Model B 
computer for just over one year 
and have recently upgraded to 
OS 1.2 and Wordwise (such a 
useful tool). 

There is one thing, though, 
that really puzzles me about the 
BBC computer. For a machine 
almost perfectly suited to edu- 
cational use. why oh why, is 
there such a shortage of good 
educational software? 

I have seen quite a few 
programs in magazines which 
purport to be educational, but 
on further investigation most 
are very poor quality indeed. I 
have two sons ages 8 and 10 and 
between us we have gathered a 
collection of programs based 
directly on work they are doing 
at school. 

Could you please tell me, for 
instance . why the programs that 
arc made available to schools by 
MEP, CET and Muse etc, are 
not readily available for sale . so 
that interested parents like 
myself could purchase them. 

I ask myself, though, could it 
have something to do with 
profit margins? By that I mean 
programs that education au- 
thorities are being charged a lot 
of money for would quite simp- 
ly sell for such prices on the 
open market. 

I find myself wondering if Sir 
Clive Sinclair’s latest idea of 
releasing them to the market 
place is going to catch on. I for 
one certainly hope so. 

Mr R Hughes 
Dagenham, Essex 

Share your thoughts in the 
UK’s liveliest micro weekly 
letters columns. Funny, feisty 
or fanciful, your letter could 
win you £10 if it's of star 
status. 

WRITITO: Random Access, 
Personal Computer News, 
VNU.Evelyn House, 62 
Oxford Street . London W1A 
2HG. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 










TWICKENHAM 

.COMPUTER CENTRE HD 


^Rcorn 


commodore 



Buy the BEST 






BRITISH ^ 
COMPUTER 


BBC Model A £299 BBC Model B £399 
Wordwise Word Processor (needs 1 .2 System) 

Software - Acorn, Bugbyte. Computer Concepts (logo 2) 

Acomsoft on Disk 

Joysticks for the BBC - 1DDK Single Disk Drive^* 1 "T 

BBC 8DDK Twin Disk Drives 

Torch 8BDK Twin Disk Drives with CPN^ c cs^ 


We stock al the extras: 

Roppy disk interface 
E conet network interface 
Voice synthesis circuits 
Cartridge ROM pack interface 
Alternative high-level languages 
\ Cassette recorders 
/ Dot matrix printers 
Daisywheel printers 
Teletext & Prestd units 
Monitors + Disk drives 
(subtect to availability) 


ACORNSOFT Software for the BBC 

Business Games Rocket Raid 

Tree of Knowledge Meteors 

Peeko-Computer Pack Arcadians 

Algebraic Manipulation Pack Sliding Block Puzzles 

Creative Graphics Cassette Cube Master 

Graphs & Charts Cassette Chess £9.95 EACH 

Desk Diary 

Philosopher’s Quest Books for ttie BBC : 

Sphinx Adventure Creative Graphics 

Monsters Graphs & Charts 

Snapper LISP on the BBC 

Planetoid FORTH on the BBC £7.50 EACH 


Plus software, peripherals, games, books and much more always available from: 

Twickenham Computer Centre 

72 Heath Rd Twickenham Middx TW14BW (Tel: 01-891 4991) 



PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEFTEMBER 28. 1983 




ZX81 £5.95 


welcome 


J awanteed[ 


THERMAL MATRIX & LINE PRINTER 


SPLCTROID STORM: A fast action graphic space Spectrum £4.45 
game You dodge asteroids ant* zap aliens in this ^ 
cosmic battle for the stars. There are bonus points "** 

to be scored for the sharp shooter with the speedy h * 

ship. The whole of hyperspace lies waiting for you J 

when you pile on the super thrust . 

FORTH: A full implementation allowing the full Spectrum £14.95 

range of sound and colour The only Spectrum 

package endorsed by the Forth Interest Group and 

the one used by Sinclair User in their series on 

Forth. 

'. . . well worth the price. . .for a speedier Spectrum’ 

. . .Personal Computer. . 


THE WIZARD’S WARRIORS: A fast moving game Spectrum £4.95 
featuring continuous sound effects and arcade 
quality graphics. 

'a well written graphics adventure!' 

. . . Home Computing Weekly 


ADVENTURE ONE: With save game facility Spectrum £6 95 

'aremarkably good version , well worth the ZX81 £5.95 

money . ' . . .Sinclair User. . . 


WHAT IS 


SLICKER 


SLICKER 


SLICKER 


SLICKER 


SLICKER 


MAZEMAN NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE LYNX £4.95 

A fast action machine code game. Spectrum £4.95 

...is very accurate and fast.’ ZX81 £4 45 

Which Micro* 


£129 


CHESS: Ten levels of play. Good graphic display 
in a class of it's own.' 

...Your Computer. . . 


INVADERS: Very fast m e action. Includes 
mystery ship and increasingly difficult sere 


DEPT 


ABERSOFT 


HEHRyS 


PCN 


404/406 Edgware Road. 

London. W2 1ED Tel: 01-402 6822 I —————— — 

ORDER BY PHONE OR CALI IN AND BEE FOR YOURSELF 


7 MAES AFALLEN. BOW ST DYFED.SY24 5BA 


24 Ansaphone 0970 828851 






ROUTINE INQUIRIES 


Lost in a maze of bits and bytes, trapped in a forest of errors, or bugged by Basic? 
Whatever your problem, access our HELP function . . . better known as Max Phillips 


Write to: Max Phillips, Routine 
Inquiries. Personal Computer 
News, VNU, Evelyn House, 

62 Oxford Street. London 
W1A2HG. 

AKsof 
more memory 

^Please could you give me 
some information on the 
Spectrum as I am thinking of 
buying one. Could you tell me 
what the difference is between a 
I6K and a 48K Spectrum? 

L Willis. 

Plymouth, Devon 

AMost magazines include lots 
Hof info about the Spectrum 
— either articles or in Sinclair's 
own ads. You'll get a good 
overview if you get hold of the 
Spectrum Micropacdia (PCN 
issues 14, 15 and 16). The other 
thing to do is to get some 
hands-on experience for your- 
self — either at your local 
Smiths or preferably local club. 

The difference between the 
16K and 48K models is. of 
course, 32K. Seriously though, 
these numbers refer to the 
amount of memory in the 
computer — a bit like the 
difference between a 1300 and 
two litre car. The 48K version 
gives you space for bigger and 
better programs and is definite- 
ly worth the extra if you have it. 
The 16K is an economy version 
though you can get it upgraded 
to a 48K machine as soon as 
funds allow. 


Programmers 
chase the Ace 

/Vtctntlv, I began sending in 
new ideas for cartridges to 
the people who make my TV 
game, Acetronic. I was dis- 
appointed to receive a letter 
which said that they could not 
use my unsolicited ideas. 

I thought my ideas were more 
interesting than those available. 
They have no 3D games. Can’t 
they be persuaded to get a move 
on with new games? Should I sell 
the game altogether? 

Mr R E Harris. 

Leeds, Yorkshire 

fll'm afraid Acetronic can do 
^wiat it likes with its pro- 
ducts. Obviously, the company 
is quite happy with the games it 
markets. It certainly isn’t 
obliged to consider ideas if it 
doesn't want to. 

So there's little you can do. If 


the games are as bad as you say 
they are and Acetronic wants to 
keep selling the game, it will 
come up with the goods. So you 
could wait in hope. 

Alternatively , you could con- 
sider a home micro such as a 
48K Spectrum. You'll find a 
massive range of some incredi- 
ble games — mostly at very 
reasonable prices. And if you 
do think of some original and 
exciting games, you'll find small 
software houses are usually 
happy to handle new ideas. 

Lock-tight 
super clues 

rtl have been trying to write a 

Security routine on my 48K 
Spectrum along the lines that 
only the right code word will 
allow access to the program 
proper. 

The only problem is that the 
program can be listed and the 
code word discovered. So can 
you give me the POKE that 
disables the Break key? 

Andrew Cook, 

Oadby, Leicestershire. 

A The standard POKE for 
disabling Break on a Spec- 
trum is widely published — try 
your back issues of PCN for 
starters! The problem is that 
people also frequently know 
ways round it. So, by all means 
make it your first line of defence 
but if you need more security, 
you should be more devious. 

There’s no reason why the 
code word should be visible in 
the listing. Convert it to its 
ASCII codesand hide it. POKE 
it into a REM statement. NOT 
all its bits and write it out 
backwards in a DATA state- 
ment. Encode it! The more 
’determined and skilled you are. 
the more people you’ll beat. 

Of course, people can spot 
what's going on if your program 
then pulls out the coded pass- 
word and converts back into an 
ASCII string. So go the other 
way. Input the user's attempt at 
the password and encode that 
and compare it with the coded 
version of the password. 

There are two other things 
that need to be done to get this 
method to work. Once you've 
got the user's password, keep it 
and periodically check it 
against the real password 
throughout the program. That 
way, if they just GOTO over 
the original password entry 
section, the program will catch 


them at the next check. 

Lastly, checksum your code 
regularly by PEEKing back 
from the Basic program area. 
Don't add up too long blocks — 
you’ll slow the program down. 
But adding together a few bytes 
here and there should tell you if 
anyone has fiddled with the 
program and tried to remove or 
bypass the protection. 

This method may seem a lot 
of effort. But the effort of 
breaking it is a bigger put off 
than beating a simple LISTing 
disable. But if you are using 
seriously personal and sensitive 
data, do remember that any 
protection scheme can be 
beaten. 

It's best not to let them get 
near the program for starters. 
Try keeping the cassettes under 
your pillow! 

Consult the 
Oricle 

|P am planning to upgrade mv 
'HfeX81 (have KAMpack — 
will wobble) and have around 
£130 to spend. My next machine 
must be able to access Prestel 
and similar databases. 

I’ve had the Oric I set in my 
sights. However the last reviews 
I read were six or seven months 
ago and were mostly conducted 
on pre-production models. The 
ROM was shown to have almost 
disastrous bugs. Have these 
been cleared up yet? For exam- 
ple, do cassette, data and screen 
files save successfully? 

Lastly, is there a Prestel 
compatible modem available for 
the Spectrum yet? 

Ian Mitchell, 

South Shields, Tyne and Wear 

flThe good news is that you 
^ran get a Prestel compatible 
modem for the Spectrum. It’s a 
Prism system designed for use 
with Micronet and you can read 
a full Pro-test in next week’s 
PCN (issue 30). The system is a 
direct connect modem and sells 
for £75. With the possible 
exception of the Microdrive 
and ZXnet, it’s the single most 
important piece of hardware 
yet to emerge for the Spectrum . 

The Oric has yet to be blessed 
with its modem, though this 
sudden outburst in popularity 
will encourage either Oric or 
others to provide one soon. As 
for the Oric’s ROM. the world 
is still awaiting a revised ver- 
sion. The last word Oric is that it 
planned one. However, replac- 


ing existing ROMs will prove a 
hurdle. Remember that the 
Oric’s case is supposedly 
sealed! 

However, most of the prob- 
lems with existing machines 
have been documented by now 
and relevant patches are avail- 
able. The lack of cassette filing 
can be compensated for using 
routines published by Oric in its 
Oric Owner magazine. Even 
so, a micro with Prestel ability 
has to be a Spectrum. 


Stuck in the 
Dragon’s maze 

1 am writing a program for 
the Dragon 32 which in- 
volves a little man moving about 
a high resolution maze. Ilow can 
I stop the man moving through 
the walls of the maze? 

The maze Is drawn with 
DRAW and the man moved with 
GET and PUT. 

Gavin Parnell. 

King's Lynn, Norfolk. 

A I'm afraid that this is some- 
thing you should have 
thought of before you coded the 
program. I hope you haven't 
got too far before you disco- 
vered this problem 
There are lots of possible 
ways to do it. As you’ve prob- 
ably realised using PPOINT to 
check individual points on the 
screen is just going to be plain 
slow. The most popular method 
is probably to keep a version of 
the maze in an array separate to 
that which appears on the 
screen. 

Each element of the array 
contains a number which indi- 
cates where the walls are for 
thatsquareon the maze. And of 
course, you would keep a note 
of the man's position in the 
array as well as on the screen. 

This system sounds horribly 
complicated, but if your prog- 
ram generates its own mazes, 
you may already be using a 
similar array. Let's try a simple 
coding system. Each square on 
the maze grid can have any of 
four exits blocked with a wall. 
Suppose the top wall has a value 
of 1 . the left wall a value of 2 . the 
right wall is 4 and the bottom 
wall is 8. 

So, to see if your man can 
move down . you could use a test 
like IF A(X.Y)>- THEN 
PRINT “YOU CANT GO 
THAT WAY", where A is the 
array and X and Y are the man's 
position in the maze. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 



MICROWAVES 


Scaled a new PEEK in microcomputing? If printed your tip will earn you a fiver. 


It you’ve got something to crow 
about ... a hit oT magic that’ll 
make the world a better place 
Tor micro users, then send it to 
PCN Microwaves — our regular 
readers’ hints and tips page. 
We’ll pay you £5 if we print it. 
We'll pay you even more if your 
little gem gets our vote as 
microwave of the month. Think 
on . . . and write to Micro- 
waves, PCS, 62 Oxford Street, 
I^>ndon W I A 2HG. 


Secret dossier 
on the BBC 

When using the DFS on the 
BBC it may be necessary to save 
a file secretly — so secretly that 
even when you ‘CAT the disk, 
the file does not show up. The 
way to do this is to type the 
following: 

SAVE " press shift and any 
function key" (Return) 

•CAT 

NEW 

LOAD "press shift and the same 
function Ary" (Return) 

You will see that the program 
that you saved did not show up 
onthe ‘CAT but did reload. It 
will only work . however, on OS 
1 . 2 . 

J Blotch, 

Newton Abbot. South Devon 


Get your Lynx 
into shape 

The Lynx has tremendous 
graphic potential, hut it lacks 
graphic commands to draw 
shapes. The procedure given in 
figure 1 is faily compact and 
allows you to draw circles, 
octagons. pentagons and 
triangles. 

A circle should be drawn with 
S=l,but this is very slow. S= 20 
does just as well and isquite a hit 
faster. An alternative way of 
speeding the procedure up, is to 
use the TEXT command. 

■ A is the horizontal position of 
the centre of the shape. 

■ B is the vertical size. 

■ S is 360 divided by the 
number of desired sides. 


An octagaon whould be pro- 
duced by S=5. 

W Clayhurn, 

Middlesex 

This is the BBC 
light program 

Having got over my hysterics in 
the letter ( PCN issue 27) about 
people having trouble with 
green screens, it occured to me 
that this program (figure 2) 
might be of some use. 

The program is for the BBC 
micro, and displays all 64 com- 
binations of foreground and 
background colours. 

For the benefit of those 
confined to monochrome moni- 
tors, each pairing of colours 
identifies itself. Incidentally, 
the data lines are almost exact 
repetitions, and are therefore 
easily entered using the Bceb’s 
copy facility. 

Martin Miles, 

Manchester 

All clear 
on the Lynx 

The Lynx does not have a 
CLEAR command to clear the 
variables and arrays. The fol- 
lowing machine code program 
performs this command. It 
should be entered with the 
monitor and can he located 
anywhere. 

The code is: 

CD CA 25 CD 8E 1 F 2 A FC 01 
23 22 1 F 02 C9 
Or in assembler: 

CDCA25 C AM 2SCA 

CD8E1F CALL 1F8E 

2AFC01 LDHL.(OIFC) 

23 INC HL 

221F02 LD (621F). HL 

C9 RET 

Simon Rushton. 

N Yorks 

Lovely 

listings 

Adding colour to listings can be 
useful for highlighting special 
parts of a program, and can 
easily be achieved by following 
these steps. 

Before the block to be col- 
oured. type the following line 
(the commas should be 
ommited). 


1O0 DEFPROC CIRCLE <X,Y, A. B,S> 

110 MOVE X , Y+B 
120 DRAW X+A*SIN(RAD(P> ) , Y+B*COS (RAD (P) ) 
130 NEXT P 
140 ENDPROC 




figure 1 


Figure 2 

Line numer, R, E. M, shift 
and 2. shift and 2. INST DEL, 
CTRL and 9. T. shift and M. T. 
one of the special colour sym- 
bols listed below. Return. 

The special symbols for each 
colour arc: 

Shift and P: Black 
E: White 
’: Red 

CBM key and*: Cyan 
CBM key and— : Purple 
*: Green 
: Blue 

Shift and A: Orange 
Shift and U: Brown 
Shift and V: Light Red 
Shift and W: Grey 1 
Shift and X: Grey 2 
Shift and Y : Light Green 
Shift and Z: Light Blue 
Shift and': Yellow 
Shift and + : Grey 3 
David Gristwood, 

Tyne and Wear 

Bug spotting 
on the Beeb 

There seems to be a bug in the 
BBC micro’s 0.1 ROM. 

If the following is entered: 
558PRINT‘PCN" 

OLD 

558PRINTPCN" 

OLD 

558PRINTPCN2" 

Then enter LIST, the follow- 
ing lines have appeared. 
46PRINT-PCN” 
558PRINTPCN2" 

E Radcliffe and R King, 

Isle of Man 

This also happens in OS 1.2 and 
with the BBC's new Basic ROM 
. . Ed 

Just the thing 
for strings 

Have you ever wanted to print a 
piece of a string in Basic? You’ll 
probably have used the MIDS 
(STR1NGNAMES. START. 
LENGTH ) function . which will 
extract a piece of a string from 
the middle. 


But you can also use this to 
decide not only how much of the 
string you want to print, but 
whether it is to be printed or 
not. 

This is achieved by taking a 
piece, starting wherever you 
want, for a given length. If you 
multiply the expression for the 
length by a logical exprevsion 
(ie one which evaluates to I or 
0), which contains the decision 
you wish to make, then if the 
expression is true the length will 
be left as set. 

But if the expression is not 
true, then because the length is 
multiplied by 0, it also becomes 
0. The result is a string of no 
length. It won't make a lot of 
difference to the output, even 
though it is printed. 

Try typing in this little prog- 
ram and running it. You will see 
the ‘HELLO!' appear and dis- 
appear. even though both 
PRINT statements are exactly 
the same. 

10 WORDS = ‘HELLO!’ 

20 MESSAGES - HERE I 
AM!’ 

30 FLAG = 0 

40 PRINT MID$( WORDS. 1, 
LEN( WORDS) * FLAG ) ; 
MESSAGES 
50 FLAG = 1 

60 PRINT MIDS( WORDS. 1, 
LEN( WORDS) * FLAG ) ; 
MESSAGES 
70 GOTO 30 


LIST laughs 
at locks 

From time to time it's useful to 
be able to take a look at Basic 
programs you have bought, but 
generally the manufacturers 
put a lock onto the code to 
prevent you from doing so. and 
perhaps copying it. 

Instead of giving the com- 
mand LIST, which will try to list 
the program from line 0 and fail . 
since line 0 is locked . command 
it to LIST 1 . Then the listing will 
begin at line 1. which is fre- 
quently not locked. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 2H. 1*0 














DISASSEMBLER 


Delve into the depthsof Epson’s HX-20 with a machine code disassembler — Elizabeth Wald explains. 


The HX unravelled 


T tic Epson HX-20 has a powerful 
monitor which enables the user easily 
to enter machine code programs. 
However, listing such programs can be 
laborious and slow, and requires you 
to be familiar with the hexadecimal codes. 
It is therefore useful to have a disassembler 
program to allow listings to be made using 
the standard 6301 machine code mnemo- 


6301 machine code is based on 6800 
machine code with the addition of several 
new instructions (see table). Most of these 
additional instructions are the direct result 
of the ability to combine registers A and B 
to form a 16 bit register, known as D. 
Within register D the upper 8-bits are 
formed by A , and B forms the lower 8-bits. 
Any alteration to the contents of A or B 
will affect register D. and vice versa. 


1 6301 INS 

r RUCTIONS N 

DT FOUND IN 6SC 

K) 




IMPLIED 

IMMEDIATE 

MftECT 

INDEXED 

EXTENDED 

ADDD 

_ 

C3 

D3 

E3 

F3 

ASL D 

05 

— 

— 

— 

— 

LDO 



cc 

DC 

EC 

FC 

LSftD 

04 

— 

— 

— 

— 

MUL 

30 

— 

— 

— 

— 

PSH X 

3C 

— 

— 

— 

— 

PUL X 

38 

— 

— 

— 

— 

SLP 

1A 



— 

— 

— 

STD 

— 

— 

DO 

ED 

FD 

SUB D 



83 

93 

A3 

B3 

XGDX 

18 

— 

— 

— 

— 


The instructions using register D are as 
follows: 'LDD' and ‘STD’ will load and 
store register D respectively. Addition and 
subtraction are done by ‘ADD D' and ‘SUB 
D’ placing the result in D. All four 
instructions can be used on the immediate, 
direct, indexed or extended modes, with 
the obvious exception of ‘STD’ which 
cannot be used in the immediate mode. It is 
possible to perform an arithmetic shift left 
(‘ASL D’) and a logical shift right (‘LSR 
D ). The contents of D can be exchanged 
with the contents of X using the ‘XGDX’ 
instruction. 

Further instructions provided are a 
multiply instruction (MUL), which multi- 
plies register A by register B, and places 
the result in register D. instructions to push 
or pull register X (PSH X’ and PUL X’) 
and a ‘sleep’ instruction (‘SLP’), which 
sends the processor into a low power 
‘sleep’ mode. 

The final group of additional instruc- 
tions on the 6301 are the so-called 



0073 60 0S * 00*70 


8F84 C6 LDA 8 £38 

002 44 43 38 OCX 

BCE 7 4C 44 33 LDS 

ewi 36 PSM A 

M73 33 PUL 8 

08CF 81 MOP 

0F86 17 TBA 

803 43 4C 36 CLV 

8CEA 53 34 33 STS 

0M3 07 TPA 

0877 33 Pa 8 

0F83 00 BSP 0F83 

0F8« 6C< JSP 8880 

8C1B 43 4C 43 CLC 

0CF0 33 34 38 STM 

0803 » STS 0808 

0879 88 •** 

0F83 38 U X 

0F06 10 XDX 

0F0E 36 PSM A 

8C1E 33 43 43 SEC 

8C21 43 4C 49 ai 

0CF6 80 88 88 . . . 

m 2 ? bco me 

0878 80 ••• 

0F87 83 SUB D £0383 
0F8A FD STA D 08F8 

8F91 C6 LDA 8 £28 

8C27 33 42 41 S8A 

8Cf C 08 88 88 " 

me cc in* o mm 

0870 88 ••• 

0F18 FD STA D 08F2 

0F94 27 BE8 0FA3 

8C20 54 41 42 TAB 


eeu 6E JW mm 

087F 88 ••• 

8F13 86 LDA A £3F 

0F13 80 JSP 0BC4 

8F9S SI Or A £84 

SC 33 36 44 38 «« 

0088 31 81 M 81 8... 

8084 31 SI 31 81 8.0. 

eeiB 3e pti 

0M1 36 PSM A 

•FI* II HOF 

8F9C JC 1IC 8 

0F9O 81 or A £88 

8C39 5 3 4C 38 SLP 

BOM 81 41 82 41 .A. A 

0O8C 03 81 84 81 

MID ei MOP 

0884 16 TAB 

0F1B 01 « 

0F9F 27 BEO 0FA3 

0C3F 42 32 41 BRA 

8018 83 81 86 81 

8014 07 01 M 81 ... . 

MU 81 IV 

0M7 36 PSM A 

0F1D 01 NOP 

0FA3 J7 TBA 

8C43 42 48 49 BMI 

8018 89 81 8A 81 

801C 88 81 8C 81 .... 

082 ) 36 PSH A 

0889 38 Pa X 

0F1F 81 NOP 

8FA7 FE LDP 08F4 

8C48 42 43 43 BCC 

0028 80 01 SC 81 .... 

0024 31 SI 31 81 8.0. 

0823 87 TPA 

0888 33 Pa 8 

MM 81 IV 

0FAB 01 or A CM 

V AD 24 BCC 0FD8 

0CS1 42 4E 45 B»C 

0028 31 01 31 81 8.0. 

0O2C SF 81 IS 81 .... 

0823 BF STS 0802 

*« 4: NM 

0F22 01 NOP 

8F23 01 NOP 

0F « f 84 AK> A £83 

0C37 42 36 43 BUC 

8038 11 81 12 81 

8034 13 81 14 01 .... 

06:8 38 AT I 

088* 81 NOP 

0898 B8 ICO A £38 

1*7- 01 NOP 

8F82 3A DEC 8 

0F63 27 BEO 0FBO 

0C3O 42 58 4C BPL 

8038 31 81 31 81 8.0. 

803C 31 01 31 01 0.0. 

0820 81 NOP 

0892 81 Cl*> A £3A 

0F27 06 LDA A £8D 

0FB3 AS LDA A MSB 

8C63 42 47 43 88E 

0048 13 82 16 82 .nr 

0044 17 82 18 82 .nr 

082F 02 •»» 

0896 8B ADD A £07 

8F2C 86 LDA A C8A 

Of BA 88 INK 

6C69 42 47 34 B6T 

0048 19 82 IA 82 .nr 

0O4C 18 82 1C 82 .nr 

0832 87 STA A 08FE 

089A 36 PSH A 

0F31 FE LDX 88F4 

0FBO FF STX 80F4 

8C6F 34 33 38 TSX 

SOM ID 82 IE 82 .nr 

8054 IF 82 28 82 .r r 

6838 86 LDA A MFF 

089C 44 LSB A 

0F37 80 JSP 8M8 

8FC3 23 Ml ^ MH 

0C73 30 S3 4C Pa 

SOM 21 82 22 82 *r*T 

S03C 23 82 24 82 0»8r 

883C 81 MOP 

089C 44 LSP A 

0F3A A6 LDA A XM 

0F3C 80 IKK 

8FC8 C3 A00 D £8322 

8C7B 54 38 33 TXS 

0068 23 81 26 81 X.S. 

8064 27 21 27 31 ' "1 

083E 80 BSP 8838 

88A8 SO 888 0898 

0F48K HA MM 

OfCC 6E ITT X83 

8FCE 86 LDA A £80 

8C81 32 34 33 PTS 

0068 28 81 29 01 £. >. 

006 C 2A 21 2A 31 

0841 36 PSH A 

08A3 04 AT® A £0F 

0F46 C6 LDA B £82 

8FD8 BO JSP 0848 

0FO3 06 LDA A C8A 

0C87 52 34 49 PTI 

0078 27 SI 28 81 ‘O*. 

0074 2C 81 2D 01 

0843 4F CLP A 

88A7 32 Pa A 

0F49 F3 A00 D 08F2 

0FDS BD JSP 8848 
MD8 7E Jtr 8834 

8CSD 37 41 49 UAI 

6078 2A 51 2E 01 *0. . 

S07C 2F 81 38 81 /.B. 

0844 F 7 STA 8 08FE 

08A9 36 PSM A 

0F4O FF STX 08F0 

0FD8 E6 LDA B XM 

8C93 4E 43 47 «6 

8D80 31 21 31 81 l'O. 

0084 31 81 32 21 0.2! 

0840 33 PVJL 8 

08A8 32 Pa A 

0F38 A6 LDA A X88 

0T32 C6 LDA 8 £83 

0FC€ FF STX 88F4 

0C99 32 4F 52 POP 

SOM SI 21 31 01 . a. 

S08C 33 21 34 21 3'4* 

0838 81 TCP 

0BAC 32 Pa A 

0F33 F3 ADO D 88F0 

0FE4 4F CLP A 

0C9F 32 4f 4C Pa 

0090 02 21 33 21 . '3< 

6094 36 21 31 81 6'Q. 

0832 81 NOP 

0881 32 Pa A 

8F39 C6 LDA 8 £83 

0TE6 20 BPL 8FE9 

0CA3 49 4C 43 INC 

8098 37 21 58 21 7'8‘ 

S09C 31 81 39 21 0.9* 

0834 86 LDA A CFF 

8836 87 STA A 0BFF 

8M3 M 

0F38 A6 LDA A X08 

0F3O 00 INK 

8FE9 87 STA A 88F8 

SCAB 43 4C 52 CLP 

6OA0 31 31 31 81 110. 

6DA4 31 01 32 31 8.21 

0839 BE LOS 0808 

0883 08 ••• 

8F3E 80 JSP 8848 

0F61 3A DEC 8 

OFED F3 BOO D 88F8 

8C81 4F 49 4D OIN 

S0A8 01 31 31 01 . 10. 

80AC 33 31 34 31 3141 

883D 8) NOP 

0887 88 ••• 

8F64 BO JSP 0888 

0FT1 80 JSP 88A9 

0C87 34 49 4D TIN 

eCM 82 31 33 31 . 131 

8084 36 31 31 01 610. 

083F 81 NOP 

0889 06 IDA A £28 

0F67 FE LDX 0BF8 

8F6A A6 LDA A X81 

0FF7 28 BRA 0FBD 

0C8O 33 33 42 SUB 

BOM 37 31 30 31 7181 

S08C 31 01 39 31 8.91 

0862 M SLB A £38 

0864 81 OP A C8A 

0880 32 Pa A 

0F6O C6 LPA B £28 

0FFA SI MOP 

SCC3 33 42 43 S8C 

sees 3IK3AFI.I. 

0OC4 36 SF 32 86 1.2. 

0866 23 80S 086a 

068F 81 NOP 

0F6F 84 AM> A £70 

0F7I 27 BED 0F86 

• *rc 81 IV 

8CC9 42 49 34 BIT 

0OC8 81 SE 3C IF ..<. 

0OCC 33 SE 34 8E 3.4. 

086A 39 ATS 

*68 80 BSP 0860 

08C3 39 PTS 
sec 4 36 PSM A 

0F73 C6 LDA 0 £41 

0F73 81 CN> A £28 

0F77 27 SCO 0F86 

8FFE 81 MOP 

0FFF 0| NOP 

8CCF 33 34 41 STA 

SCO 2 43 4F 32 EOP 

SOM 82 SE 33 SE . . 3. 

8004 36 SC SO SF 6. •. 

6008 37 SE 38 SE 7. 0. 

066E 48 ASL A 

086 F 48 ASL A 

08C7 B7 STA A 082F 

8F7A 01 DT A £30 

8C83 4C 33 32 LSR 

8CD8 4F 32 41 ORA 

800C 3E SE 39 SE >.9. 

StCS 31 83 SA M l.>. 

0878 48 ASL A 

M7I 37 PSH 8 

06C8 39 PTS 

0F7E C6 LDA 8 £44 

8C09 54 41 38 TAP 

0CDC 43 38 38 CPX 

80C4 38 SB 32 83 1.2. 

8DEB 81 83 3C M ..<. 

M72 36 PSH A 

08CD 01 NOP 

0F82 27 BEO 0F06 

0C8F 49 4C 38 1W 

8CE4 4A 33 32 JSP 

0CCC 33 83 34 S3 3.4. 

8DF8 82 83 33 S3 .. 3. 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. IW3 




DISASSEMBLER 


■ 


‘immediate mode' instructions, of which 
there are four: ‘AIM' (And Immediate 
Mode), ‘EIM’ (Exclusive or). ‘OIM’ (Or) 
and’TIM’ (Test). Each instruction re- 
quires one byte of immediate data, and a 
direct or indexed mode memory address. 
These instructions perform the appropri- 
ate logical operation on the immediate 
data and the contents of the specified 
location. The first three instructions place 
the result in the memory location, but 
‘TIM' merely sets the N and Z (negative 
and zero) flags, and discards the result. 
Note that the ‘TIM’ instruction is similar to 
the ‘AIM’ instruction, and not to the 6800 
instruction ‘TST\ The machine code 
requires that the immediate data is the first 
byte following the op-code, and the 
address the second byte. 

The Basic program provided stores the 
machine code , held in data statements, and 
transfers control to the machine code 
program at &HOBOO. The program 
operates as follows: 

1000 Prints ‘wait’ message. 

1010 Stores machine code program. 

1020 k 1030 Define functions to obtain the 
upper and lower bytes of an address 
entered as a string. 

1040 Selects the language . sets top address 
for machine code stack and start address of 


0O6C 5E 83 39 83 >.9. 

ecee v » 48 2 * hh 

8E84 41 26 3F 4/ At'* 
8C88 42 26 43 28 8tCt 
9EBC 44 26 SI 91 MO. 

K 18 46 26 4 7 26 ftM 
06 14 48 26 49 26 Htll 
06 18 4A 87 48 82 J.Kr 
06 1C 4D 97 31 81 M.Q. 
9E28 37 2« 48 2A ’404 
8624 41 2A 36 4A A«->J 
8629 42 2A 43 2A B«C» 

06 2C 44 2A 43 2» OK* 
8638 46 2A 47 20 F4G* 
8634 48 2A 49 2A H«l* 
8638 4A 80 4C 8A J.L. 
863C 4C 80 46 80 A. N. 
8648 3F 26 48 26 9.8. 
8644 41 26 36 46 0. ’ll 
8648 42 26 43 26 B. C. 
864C 44 26 43 26 0.6. 
8638 46 26 47 26 F. 8. 
8634 48 26 49 26 H. I. 
8638 40 86 4C 86 3.L. 
863C 40 86 46 86 UK 
8668 3F 23 48 23 ’888 
8664 41 23 36 43 04 7C 
8668 42 23 43 23 B8C8 
866C 44 23 45 23 0468 
8678 46 23 47 23 6880 
8674 48 23 49 23 M8I8 
8678 40 83 4C 83 J.L. 
867C 40 03 46 03 M. N. 
8688 3F 36 48 36 ’686 
8684 41 36 49 47 0618 
8688 42 36 43 36 B6C4 
868C 44 36 31 91 D60. 
8698 46 36 47 36 F686 
8694 48 36 49 36 M6I6 
8698 44 47 31 91 080. 
869C 4F 07 31 81 0.0. 
8608 3F 30 48 30 7i0i 
8604 41 30 49 4A 01 12 
8608 42 30 43 30 B>C> 

86 AC 44 30 43 SO 0>6> 
8688 46 30 47 30 Fi6> 
8684 48 30 49 30 Mill 
86B8 44 40 43 40 0262 
868C 4F 80 38 00.0. P. 

86 C8 3F 36 48 36 *>0> 
86C4 41 36 49 46 0>IM 
86C8 42 36 43 36 8>C> 
86CC 44 36 43 36 0 C> 
8608 46 36 47 36 F>«> 
8604 48 36 49 36 H>t> 
8608 44 46 43 46 OKU 
86DC 4F 86 38 86 0. P. 
8668 3F 33 48 33 ’383 
8664 41 33 49 43 031C 
8668 42 33 43 33 B3C3 
866C 44 33 43 33 0363 
86F9 46 33 47 33 F383 
86F4 48 S3 49 33 M3I3 
86F8 44 43 43 43 DC6C 
8EFC 4F 83 38 B3 O.P. 
1888 CLSI90UW 6.3IP8IMT 
"PLEASE MAI T i LOOOIM8* 
1818 M6NS6T 6K2888IF08 I 
=t>«ee TO 1KTF.H6A0 S8 
.POPE I1.M.-I8'>si)l« 


1813 SOUK) 26.3 

IRB D€FT>»ft(X») 

•♦C£rr»<8P0C64(4-LEN<x») 


1838 D8VT-ST08T OISSOSS 
■IS8HFL6M<S*)>4T)CH 18 
38 ELSE IF L6N(S8>«0T>CN 


1863 P0F6U«F6.FMei<S*>i 
POF66H067 . FML X ( Si > 

1878 EX6C6X80. A V .-P6E> <6 
MBF6 ) i IMBPffnMMKW I 
tMBFF > I LP81NT08K< 091 > 1 1 8 
OTO1078 
1888 SOTO 1848 
1881 D#UT*TEBMIN0T6 V/M 
*IV8I IFV8.*VTV6M DC 6 
LS6 IFV$. -M- TKM18896LS6 1 

set 

1898 OOTO 3C. 36. 37. 7.36. 

86. 8. 00. FE. 8. 04. 27. 8. BE. 
B.O2.CC.8.8.F0.B 

1188 OOTO 04.66.8. B6. 8.0 

2.3B.I.1.I.1.3C. 36.37.7. 

36. 86. 9.02. 86. B 

1118 OOTA 08.31.1.1.1.2. 

86. 1.B7.B.F6.BO.B. 28.86. 

B.FF. 39.1. 1.00 

1128 OOTA F8. 37*36. B7.B. 

FF.46.F6.B.26.67.B.66.32 

.33.28.08.1.1.1.1 

1138 OOTA 86. FF. 87, 8. Ft. 

ec.B.oe.ss.i.i.i.eo.oc.e 

8.38.81. 0. 23. 2. 88 

1148 OOTO 7.39.80.63.48. 


48.48.48.37.36.60.61 
1B.33. 39.8.8.8.8.9 
1138 DATA 9.8.37.36.80.6 
7.16.80.64.36.37.38.32.3 
3.39.1.1.1.88.38.81 
1168 OOTO 30.23.2.88.7.2 
8.06.36.36.44.44.44.44.8 
0.66.32. 84* F .8D.E9.32 
1178 DATA 39. 36. 3C. 32.80 
.EC. 32. 80.69. 32.39. 8.8.8 
.8.0.36.86.28.80.83 
1188 OOTO 32.39. 1.76.1.2 
F. 39. 36. 06. 2.87.8.26.32. 
39.1. 1.1.1. 39.28 
1198 OOTA 8.68.9.9.12.2. 
46.13. OC.OC. 2.66. DC. 84.4 
3.C8.C8.C8.4.C8.4I 
1288 DATA 29.C9.C8.3. 0,6 
.22.6. 31. C. 8. 0.8. 8. 3. 8.1 
F.D.6C.8.S 

1218 DATA 9.9.2.0.46.46. 
38.4C. 33.32.41. 33.4C.34. 
41.38.34.38.41.49.46 


machine code program. 

1050 A 1055 Input & store the start address 
for disassembly. 

1060 k 1065 Input and store the end 
address for disassembly. 

1070 Executes machine code until a 
character needs to be printed . or disassem- 
bly is finished. 

10M I .(Hips back to line 1040. 

1051 Checks whether the user wishes to 
terminate the program following a null 
input in lines lOSOor 1060. 

1090 to 1690 Machine code data. 

Machine code program 

The machine code program set up by Basic 
operates as follows: 

0600-0B1B Save the Basic stack pointer, 
load the machine code stack pointer 
and transfer control to the main 
body of machine code at OFOO 
onwards. 

Subroutines: 

0B20-0B2B Saves machine code stack 
pointer, loads basic stack pointer, 
and returns to Basic. 

0B30-0B3B Character input routine from 
the keyboard. 

0B40-0B4I Character output routine to the 
display. 

OB54-OB5C Routine to terminate the 


machine code program. 

0B60-OB6A Inputs one hezadccimal digit. 
0B6B-0678 Inputs two hexadecimal digits. 
0B80-OB8C I n puts four hexadecimal digits. 
0690-0698 Prints one hexadecimal digit. 
069A-06A8 Prints two hexadecimal digits. 
0BA9-0BB2 Prints four hexadecimal digits. 
06B8-068C Prints a space. 

OBCO-OBC3 Sets output mode to LCD. 
0BC4-08CB Sets output mode to internal 
printer. 

Main program: 

0F00-0F26 Start of main body of dis- 
assembler. initialization, etc. 
OF27-OF2C Prints carriage return and line 
feed. 

0F31-0F40 Prints address of instruction 
and op-code. 

0F43-0F64 Prints mnemonic. 

OF67-OF87 Prints register, if any 
0F8A-0F M Prints mode character, if any , ie 
#’,*$• or *X\ 

OfA7-OFAD Jumps to OFDB if branch 
relative/BSR. 

0FAF-0FB8 Outputs one or two bytes of 
eithe r address or data. 

OFBO-OFC3 Branches to OFCE to termin- 
ate the program if disassembly is 
completed. 

0FC5-0FCC Branches back to 0F27. 
0FDB-0FF7 Calculates and prints the abso- 
lute address, for a relative branch or 
‘BSR’, from the relative offset, and 
branches to OFBD. 

Locations 0C00-0EFF hold two tables: 
OCOO-OCF5 contains a list of mnemonics, 
and ODOO-OEFF contains two bytes per 
op-code, the first byte representing the 
mnemonic number, and the second byte 
the relevant details. 

Using the program 

On typing ‘RUN’ the program displays 
PLEASE WAIT: LOADING’ to indicate 
that the machine code is being set up. This 
is followed by prompts for the start and end 
addresses of the memory area to be 
disassembled. The addresses are entered 
in hexadecimal but the prefix ‘&H’ is not 
required. The program may be terminated 
at this point by pressing ‘RETURN’, and 
the user confirms that the program is to be 
terminated by entering ‘Y\ or ‘N’ to 
continue. 

The program prints the disassembled 
program, one instruction per line, in five 
columns. Column one contains the instruc- 
tion’s address as a four digit hexadecimal 
number. The second column contains two 
hexadecimal digits representing the op- 
code. and third column gives the corres- 
ponding mnemonic. The fourth column 
gives the register, if applicable, and the 
fifth column contains the address or data 
field, in either immediate ('#’). direct 
(’$’), indexed (‘X’) or extended mode. 

All branches and branch to subroutine 
instructions are followed by an absolute 
address. 

Illegal op-codes are printed as *•••', and 
the following mnemonics have been 
changed: TNX\ DEX’, LDD' and STD’ 
are printed as ‘INC X’. ‘DEC X’, ‘LDA D’ 
and ‘STA D’ respectively, and ‘XGDX’ 
has been changed to ‘XDX’. 


3. 4C. 49.33. 43 


1238 DATA 49.3 


1248 DATA 38.41.42.41.42 
.32.41.42.32.46.42.48.49 
. 42. 4C. 33. 42. 43. 43. 42. 43 


4C.42.4I 


" • 42. 47 


1268 DATA 43. 42. 4C. 34. 42 
.47.34. 42. 4C. 43. 34. 33.38 
.49.46.33.38.53.40.44.43 
1278 OOTA 33. 34. 38. 33. 38 
.33.48.32.34.33.41.42.38 
.32.34.49.40.33.40.57.41 
1288 DATA 49.33.57 49 46 
.43.47.43.46. 40. 52. 46. 32 
-41.33.32.32.46.40.44.43 
1298 CATO 43.49.46.43-34 
.33.34.43.40.32.41.49.40 
-.49.40.43.49.40.34.49 
8 Onto 40.40.40.38.33 
.33.42.43.40.38.33.42.43 
.41.46.44.42.49.34.40.44 
1319 OOTA 41.33.34.41.43 
46.32. 41. 44. 43. 46. 32.41 
.41.44.44.43.38.38.42.33 
1328 DATA 52 40. 53.32. 4C 
.44.53.33.34.33.40.44.38 
.33.34.38.20.20.20.8.8 
1338 OOTO 0.0. 8.0. 0.8.0. 
8. 31.1.8.1. SI. 1.31. 1.1.4 
I.2.4T * 


1338 OATO 6.1.31.1.31.1. 
31. 1.31. 1.6. 1.19.1. 11.1. 
12.1.13.1.14 
1368 OOTA 1.31.1.31.1.31 
.1.31.1.13.82.16.82.17.8 
2.18.82.19.82.10.82 
1378 OOTA 18.82. 1C. 82.10 
.82.16. 82. IF. 82.28. 82. 21 
82.22.82.23.82.24.82.23 
.388 DATA 1.26.1.27.21.2 
7.31.28.1.29. I. 20.21. 20. 
31.27.31.28. 1.2C.1 
1398 OOTO 20.1.20.51.26. 
1.26.1.38.1.31.21.31.1.3 


1.1.32.21.1.21. 

1488 OOTA 1.33.21.34.21. 
2.21.33.21.36.21.31.1.37 
.21.38.21.31.1.39.21 
1418 OOTO 31.31.31.1.31. 
1.32.31.1.31.31.1.33.31. 


1468 OOTO 26.43.9.44.26. 

31.1.46.26.47.26.48.26.4 
9.26.40.7.48.82.40.7 
1478 OOTA 31.1.36.20.48. 
20.41.20.36.40.42.20.43. 
20.64. 20.43. 20.46. 20.47 
1488 OOTA 20.48.20.49.20 
,4A.O.4C.A.40.O.46.O.3r 
26. 48. 26. 41. 26. 36. 46 
1498 OOTO 42.26.43.26 44 
.26.43.26.46.26.47.26.48 
. 26*49. 26. 4A.E.4C. 6.40 
1380 OOTO 6.46.6.36.23.4 

8.23.41.23.36.43.42.23.4 
3.23.44.23.43.23.46.23 
1319 OoTO 47.23.48.2349 
■ 23. 40. 3. 4C. 3. 40. 3. 4£,* 
36.36.48.36.41.36.49 
1328 OOTO 47.42.36 43.36 
.44.36.31.1.46.36.47.36. 
48.36.49.36.44.47.31.1 
1338 OOTO 46.7.31.1.36.3 
0.48.30.41.30.49.40.42.3 
A. 43.30.44. 3A. 43.30, 46 
1348 OATO 30.47.30.48.30 
.49.30.44.40.43.40.46.0. 
38.0. 3F. 36. 48. 36. 41. 36 
1338 OoTO 49.46.42 36-43 
.36.44.36.43.36.46.36.47 
.36.48.3649.3644.46.43 
1368 OATO 46.46.6.38.6.3 
F. 33.48. 33.41. 33. 49. 43. 4 
2.33.43.33.44.33.43.33 
1378 OOTO 46.33.47.33.4 
.33.49.33.44.43.43.43.4 
.3.38. 3. 86. 8. 66. 80.0 
1388 OOTO 38. 18.83.3.3.6 
0.6.68.C3. 1 .8.60.0.62.86 
. 36.BD.0.C4. 1.1 

1398 OOTA 1.1. 1.1. 1.1.1. 

1 1. 1.1. 1.1. 86. 0.80.8. 48 
.86.0.80 

1688 OOTO 8.6 ... 

O.B. 09. 80. 8. 88. 06. 0.8.66 
.B.F4.B0.B.9O.80 
1618 DATA 8.88.C6.2.30.6 
3.8.62. 18. FF.0F8.O6.0.C 
6. 3. 30. 63.8. F0. 18 
1628 OOTA C6. 3. 06.8.8- 80 
.8.48.30.26.67.80.8.88.6 
6. 8. 68. 06.1. 36. C6 
1638 OoTO 28.84.78.27.13 
8* A* - “,27.0.3* *■ 


30.27.9.C6.4 
1648 DATA 2.C6.3L . . 

8. 48.80.8.88.32.36. 84.C. 


1. 8. 27.2.C6. 38.17.80.8.4 


38.31.31.1.39.31.31.6.30 
- 1.6.32.6.1.6 
1438 OATO 3C.F. 33.6-34,6 
.2.6.33.6.36.6.30.6.37,6 
.38.6.36.6.39 
1440 DATA 6.31.3.30.8,38 
.8.32.3.1. 3. 3C. 8.33.3.34 
.3.2.3.33.3 

1430 DATA 36.3.30.8.37.3 
.38.3.36.3.39.3.36.26.48 
" 11.26.36.47.42 


8.66.8.64. 32.81.8, 

1660 0«TO 24. 2C. 84. 3. 16. 
30.27.8.06.8.80.8.90.8.2 
0.F3.FF.B.F4.BC.B 
1678 OOTO F6.22.9.FC-8.F 
8.C3.3. 22. 18.66.3.86.0.8 
-.8.48.86.0.80.8 
688 OOTO 48.76.8.54.66. 
.8F6.8.F4.67.B.F9.4F.3 
..-0.1. 40.87. 8.68 
1698 OATA 18. 63. 8.68. ll 
B0.B.09.FE.B.F4.28C4.I. 

~ -.1.1. 1. 1 II 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 



The incredible Prism VTX 


Modem 


5000 



NOW, YOUR ZX SPECTRUM 
IS YOUR KEY TO THE WORLD 


• Versatile modem for 
ZX Spectrum 

16K or 48 K versions 

• Slim design fits easily, 
matches your micro 

• Instant access to Prester 
and Micronet 800 
information services 

• Instant communication with 
other ZX Spectrum users 

• Use the Prism VTX 5000 
with a Sinclair printer - and 
print Prestel frames 


tf you own a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, we've got some great news for you. Plug in 
the slim device above, and your micro instantly becomes a highly intelligent 
interactive terminal, accessing a massive database that includes the entire 
Prestel' information service, and the spectacular new Micronet 800 micro* 
users' databank’ 

The Prism VTX 5000 modem fits neatly under your ZX Spectrum (it works with 
16K and 48K versions) and talks to the world via your telephone 

Besides the familiar - and growing - Prestel service (Spectrum UK has its own 
micro users' update on Prestel), the Micronet 800 service puts a vast array of 
downloadable games, education and business packages, and micro infor- 
mation at your fingertips 

You can talk to other ZX Spectrum users, too ■ either directly, for the cost of 
a 'phone call, or via the Micronet 800 coded ‘Mailbox’ system which holds 
messages until you’re ready to access them. 

The Prism VTX 5000 comes complete with connecting leads and instruc- 
tions; plus a full Micronet 800 Information / application pack - Plus! a 
voucher worth up to C25 for a FREE Jack Plug installation (if required) by 
British Telecom - Ask your local SPECTRUM dealer for full details. 


SPECTRUM LOW PRICE 














Tl TRANSFORMATIONS 


Stephen Shaw details the pleasures and pitfalls of making your TI programs rewrite themselves. 


Self-writing Tl 


The idea of a program which can change 
itself is not particularly new . . .infact.it 
is one of the oldest concepts around. 

However, it has never been exploited 
to any major extent, largely because the 
received wisdom in the industry is that 
self-modifying programs are a bad thing. 
Lest this should sound autocratic, we 
should add that there's a very good 
reason. 

Ordinary common-or-garden non- 
modifying programs are hard even for the 
original author to follow or modify. 
Imagine trying to follow one which 
changes every time you look at it! 

So. enjoy the idea, use it to do some 
clever tricks, but take care not to include 
the technique in any programs which you 
expect to use for a long time and don’t 
wish to be endlessly modifying 

W ^Hhen either the Mini Memory 
Module or the Extended Basic 
Module plus 32K Extended Mem- 
ory are used, it is possible for TI99/4A 
owners to examine the storage of their 
programs in the computer's memory. 

The T199/4A stores program lines on a 
stack principle. As each line is entered, 
regardless of its line number, it is placed at 
the top of the stack . When a program line is 
edited, the old line is removed, the stack is 
adjusted, and the new line added to the 
top, hence the delay before the cursor 
reappears. The computer is changing the 
memory locations of every line above the 
edited line, and changing the line index 
which it uses to point to the lines, and which 
is stored at the very top of the program 
stack in line number order. 

If no disk controller is attached, users 
may find their TI Basic programs in VDP 
RAM. The first line entered will end at 
address 16383. and each subsequent line 
entered will end at a lower address. 

With Extended Basic and 32K RAM. 
programs are stored from CPU RAM 
address -25. each subsequent line having a 
more negative address. A handful of 
Extended Basic Version 1(10 modules have 
been sold in the UK. With these, programs 
start from CPU address 0 (zero). 

Programs are stored in coded format, 
with single byte codes for the command 
words, using ASCII codes 129 to 254. This 
is why users may not define 255 characters. 
Internally an offset is used to make ASCII 
32 (space) appear to be a code 0, and 
ASCII 159 appear to be a code 127, for 
screen printing purposes. 

In program storage the offset is not used 
and characters appear as having their 
proper coding. 

Enter this program, in this order: 

100 REM PCN 
1 10 A=B+2 
120CS=DS&“E” 




i 





h 




In Extended Basic, in command mode, 
enter the following line (NB: no line 
number!): 

FOR T= -25 TO -51 STEP -1 ::CALL 
PI I KIT.A):: 

PRINTT;A;CHRS(A) :: NEXTT 

When you press ENTER the computer 
will display the short three line program by 
showing the memory location, the value in 
that location, and the equivalent character 
(if appropriate). 

Without 32K RAM the program is 
stored in VDP RAM and Extended Basic 
does not allow you access to this area of 
memory. 

With mini memory, the command mode 
section must be added to the program, 
using locations from 16383 to 16356. Note 
that in TI Basic the storage format is 
slightly different, although the same codes 
are used, eg in TI Basic a space is inserted 
on both sides of the REM PCN. For mini 
memory, use PEEKV instead of PEEK. 

A list of the command codes is given in 


figure I. They are fairly straightforward, 
except the way in which fixed values are 
stored. NUMBERS and UNQUOTED 
STRINGS are identified by code 200. This 
is followed by the number of digits or 
characters involved, and then the number 
or the characters themselves. 

An example of an unquoted string is the 
name given to a subprogram. CALL 
COLOR for instance uses one byte for 
CALL but COLOR takes up 7 bytes — 5 
for the word and one each to identify the 
unquoted string and to indicate its length. 
This is why you cannot use CALL SUBS : 
SUBS is a quoted string. Ouoted strings are 
identified by code 199. and follow the same 
format — one byte is used for the length of 
the string. 

LINE NUMBERS when they appear in 
a program (eg GOTO 123) are identified 
by code 201. and the actual line number 
then takes up just two bytes, whatever 
number it is. If the first byte is A and the 
second byte is B, the line number is: 


22 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 




WHATtiS 

JUMBLY 


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WHAT IS 


JUMBLY 


Whatever your interest, whatever your micro, 
we’re sure to have a book for you. 


WHAT IS 


If you re in the trade, come and talk 
to us about special discount schemes and 
point-of-sale material. 

And if you think you could write the ultimate 
book on any aspect of personal computing, 
we’d like to hear from you too. 


JUMBLY 


WHAT IS 


JUMBLY 


So come and see us on 

Stand 456 

you could be kicking yourself if you don’t! 



There are some 
people who think 
that if a Printer looks 
like an Epson, 
it will perform like one. 



It won't. 


Imitation is 

the sincerest form of flattery. 
But there's only one Epson. 


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Sales Enquiries Freefone 2730 
General Enquiries 01-902 8892 
Telex 8814169 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28, IW.1 


Tl TRANSFORMATION 


22 LINE NUMBER = A times 255 plus B 
Byte B has a maximum value of 127. and 
byte A a maximum value of 255, giving a 
maximum line number of 32767. 

It is possible by entering short programs 
such as the above to obtain a good 
understanding of how the computer stores 
its programs. 

As you have the capacity to change the 
contents of CPU RAM with Extended 
Basic (CALL LOAD) or VDP RAM with 
Mini Memory (POKEV). it becomes 
possible for a program to almost complete- 
ly rewrite itself. 

In Extended Basic, add to the short 
program above the following line: 

130 CALL INIT:: CALL 
LOAD( -28.77.65.71) 

Before you RUN the amended program. 
LIST it. Now ENTER RUN and LIST 
again. Notice any change? 

When changing a line in a program in this 
manner, there are two important precau- 
tions: 

1. The line, and any lines below it in the 
program stack, must not be edited. Other- 
wise when you change the contents of 
memory locations, you won't be changing 
the line you thought you were! It is possible 
to look up the line's memory location in the 
line index before the program rewrites the 
line, but it is much easier to ensure that the 
line(s) to be rewritten are at the bottom of 
the stack. If only one line is to be edited, 
enter it first With a middle value line 
number: 

10000 REM PCN 

Now you may enter lines on either side, and 
edit them, and the location of that line will 
not alter. You may also RESEQUENCE 
without causing any problems. 

2 . The length of the line is the first byte in 
the line, and it is probably not possible to 
rewrite a line with a different length. 

In Extended Basic this is not Ux> much of 
a problem: the initial line can terminate 
with a tail REM (!) and a long false REM. 
When rewritten you merely ensure that the 
overwriting terminates with a tail REM 
(code 131 ) and a space (code 32). then the 
rest of the line remains as a dummy REM. 

In TI Basic it is usually necessary to keep 
the line length the same, but some 
commands do permit dummy endings. 
This is a matter for experimentation. 

What use is this facility? I have programs 
in TI Basic and Extended Basic which 
permit pseudo high resolution pictures to 
be drawn by redefining characters. When 
completed the computer scans the screen 
and rewrites the program by dumping the 
definitions and positions of the characters 
to defining lines. When the overwritten 
program is re-run, the sketch appears quite 
quickly. 

Another use is tocreate commands TI do 
not give you. A popular use is to enable a 
generalised disk directory to be added to 
each disk. When Extended Basic is 
selected, the automatic directory, on the 
disk as LOAD, is loaded and RUN 
automatically. 

It then reads the disk index and presents 
you with a menu. The menu selection is 
then automatically run. Extended Basic 


will permit the program line: 

100 RUN “DSK1. GAME" 
but not: 

100 RUN “DSK1."&A$ 

There seems to be no reason for this not to 
be accepted, except that it gives an error 
message SYNTAX ERROR 

Therefore the rewrite facility is used to 
CALL LOAD the required line into 
memory, one byte at a time, so that the 
computer sees the line as RUN 
**DSK 1 .GAME", exactly as it wants to see 
it. In this case, because the disk file names 
are not of fixed length, a value of zero was 
placed in the unused dummy line positions. 
Zero marks end of line and prevents 
crashes. 

It is possible with this facility to insert 
your own (if limited) VAL function, to 
permit for example the INPUT of a 
fraction in the form 3/4. First you need a 
dummy line: 

10000 A = AAAAAAAAAA + AAAAA 
AAAAA +AAAAAAAAAA 
If this is the first line input it is fairly simple 
to find the locations of each character in the 
line, as they are stored in memory. 

Your input will be to a string variable: 
INPUT “FRACTION": AS 
then you must split this up into its three 
parts and place them into the DEF line. 

Use a loop and SEG$ to determine the 
location of the oblique 7*. This will enable 
you to determine each part of the string. 

Following the equal sign in the DEF 
statement you will need code 200. then a 
value equal to the number of digits in the 
first number (use LEN and SEGS). Then 


place the number using the ASCII codes 
for each digit. Then follows code 1% (/). 
code 200, and the length of the second 
number, then the digits in ASCII code. 
Finally, so that the excess AAA’s have no 
effect, in Extended Basic load the aides 
131 and32.orinTI Basic load the codes 193 
(+) and two 65’s (A). Provided your 
program does not use variables made up of 
several AAA's, these have a zero value and 
noeffect. Toquickly see a final result, clear 
your computer and enter 
1000A-45/788+AA+AAAAAA+ 
AAAAA 

Now see how that is stored, using the 
methods described above. 

After you have entered your fraction. 
andCALLLOADed(orPOKEV'd)itinto 
memory, you may refer to the fraction in 
your program by GOSUBing to 1000 to set 
the value of A. 

If the line is to be used more than once, it 
should be restored to its original state 
between each use . by CALL LOADing the 
original values. 

The ability to change a program in this 
way opens a powerful and useful door for 
TI99/4A owners, who are no longer quite 
as limited as they may have thought. 

It is possible for a 1 3K program to almost 
completely overwrite itself — only the last 
line needs to be unaltered, to prevent a 
crash during overwriting. 

Note the use of CALL LOAD above. 
You may load a line fully with only one 
command, and in the correct order. When 
using Mini Memory CALL INIT is not 
used. 


Figure 1 


129 ELSE 

161 SU8 

193 * 

225RPTS 

130:: 

162 DISPLAY 

194 (MINUS) 

226 NK 

131 ! (TAIL REM) 

163 IMAGE 

195 • 

227 NK 

132 IF 

164 ACCEPT 

196 

228 NK 

133 00 

165 ERROR 

197 

229 NK 

134 GOTO 

166 WARNING 

198 NK 

230 NK 

135 GOSUB 

167 SUBEXIT 

199 STRINC MARKER 

231 NK 

136 RETURN 

168 SUBEND 

200 UNQUOTED STRINC 

232 NUMERIC 

137 DCF 

169 RUN 

201 LINE NUMBER 

233 oterr 

138 DIM 

170 LINPUT 

202 EOf 

234 UALPHA 

139 END 

171 NK 

203 ABS 

235 SIZE 

140 FOR 

172 NK 

204 ATN 

236 ALL 

141 LET 

173 NK 

205 COS 

237 USINC 

142 BREAK 

174 NK 

206 EXP 

238 BEEP 

143 UNBREAK 

175 NK 

207 INT 

239 ERASE 

144 TRACE 

176 THEN 

208 LOG 

240 AT 

145 UNTRACE 

177 TO 

209 SGN 

241 BASE 

146 INPUT 

178 STEP 

210 SIN 

242 NK 

147 DATA 

179 . (COMMA) 

211 SQR 

243 VARIABLE 

148 RESTORE 

180 ; (SEMI COLON) 

212 TAN 

244 RELATIVE 

149 RANDOMIZE 

181 : (COLON) 

213 LEN 

245 INTERNAL 

150 NEXT 

182) 

214CMRS 

246 SEQUENTIAL 

151 READ 

1831 

215 RND 

247 OUTPUT 

152 STOP 

184 A 

216 SECS 

248 UPDATE 

153 DELETE 

185 NK 

217 POS 

249 APPEND 

154 REM 

186 OR 

218 VAL 

250 FIXED 

155 ON 

187 AND 

219STRS 

251 PERMANENT 

156 PRINT 

188 XOR 

220 ASC 

252 TAB 

157 CALL 

189 NOT 

221 PI 

253 * IWTTN FILES) 

158 eption 

190 

222 REC 

254 VALIDATE 

159 OPEN 

191 < 

223 MAX 


160 CLOSE 

192 > 

224 MIN 



■ Many code* are not accepted by the TI Basic interpreter, 

■ Some code* (mariied NK) an not accepted in Extended Basic. 

■ Codes may be used slightly differentty by TI Basic to Extended Basic. The c omputer adjusts storage 
format If a program saved in TI Basic is loaded with Extended Basic and v*. 


PCN SEPTEMBER ^SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 




p 


PCN PRO-TEST 


HARDWARE 


After having played with Portico’s portable Z80 computer , Max Phillips seems to believe in miracles. 

An immaculate 
conception? 


T he Portico Miracle may seem a little 
like a hopeful latecomer. Portico is a 
new British company and the Miracle 
seems to be a rather old-fashioned 
Osborne-like machine. But this particular 
Z80, CP/M plus free software in a portable 
box offering is a little bit special. 

The Miracle is a comfortable machine to 
work with. A 10 inch screen and 368K 
floppies make it more luxurious (and 
heavy!) than an Osborne. A 64K disk 
cache memory provides a dramatic per- 
formance. And a price tag of £1.795 isn't 
ridiculous. 

Presentation 

The Miracle presents itself a little better 
than its advertisements. It arrived in a 
smart black shoulder bag plus the usual 
plastic bag of manuals. 

A simple but welcome touch is a freebie 
Super de-luxe disk library. These folders 
provide a safe way to transport and 
organise up to 16 disks each. 

The Miracle's looks have been well 
thought out. It’s aimed at executives and. 
though not a toy. is definitely designed to 
grace their desks. 

When in use it sits flat on the desk. The 
user looks down on its slightly angled 
screen so conversations across the desk 
are not impaired by the machine. And a 
sliding hatch over the interfaces keeps the 
back of the machine as tidy as possible. 

Documentation 

This seems to be a typical British let down 
although the British habit is to gradually 
improve the standards of manuals. You get 
a systems manual and a software manual, 
both daisywheelcd A4 spiral bound books. 

The first deals with the Miracle and its 
system software. There's a hopelessly brief 
introduction to CP/M and a short look at 
the 'Guide' front end package. The 
transfer utility, disk cache software and 
built-in monitor are also described. 

Finally, there’s a wealth of extremely 
welcome technical information — pin 
outs, terminal sequences, memory maps, 
character sets, conversion tables and so on . 
Unfortunately, they won’t do much for 
your average business user who will be 
looking in vain for a ‘getting started' 
section. 

The second manual deals with three of 
the five supplied applications programs, 
the Chang labs suite Memoplan. Fileplan 
and Profitplan. The IANKEY typing tutor 


doesn't seem to qualify for a manual and 
Micromodeller comes as a complete pack- 
age with its own manual. 

The documentation is a slightly con- 
densed version of Chang's own manuals, 
themselves not renowned for their help- 
fulness. Like the systems manual, the 
information tends to be plain reference. 
It's up to the user to have the sense and 
courage (and preferably experience) to try 
and work the thing. In my own case, I 
needed to borrow a copy of a full Chang 
manual simply to find out how to print 
headings at the top of each Memoplan 
page. Worrying to say the least. 

The Miracle is very much a dealer 
machine, one that is designed to be 


‘A system which 
outperforms 
a great many of 
its rivals’ 


demonstrated to customers, have its users 
trained and. of course, problems can 
always be cured with a phone call. There's 
nothing wrong with that, business 
machines should have this level of support . 
The Miracle is actually a lot easier to use 
than many of its rivals. However, a little 
more effort on the manuals will save users 
and dealers a lot of wasted time. 

Construction 

The Miracle is a very solid 28lbs of 
computers. In anyone’s terms it's heavy, 
more so than any number of desktops. 
Portico may in time reduce the weight but 
current policy is to keep the machine as 
solid as possible. 

With a system like this, portability is a 
sideline. It is a one box system that can be 
moved with a car at weekends or between 
offices at lunchtime. The shoulder bag 
docs make it possible to carry and it is no 
harder than shifting an Osborne. 

One last point on portability. Osborne 
established a joke about a computer that 
could fit under an airline seat. It may be a 
while before I get to test that with a 
Miracle. But it is really difficult to fit it 
between the seats on the bus home. 

The Miracle is cooled by a fan — not 


obtrusive but loud enough to let you know 
it’s there. Inside, the computer is based on 
the Radar 150 board. Pro-Tested in PCN 
issue 20. 

The system is a Z80 with 64K RAM plus 
an extra 64K RAM for the disk cache 
memory. Current options include a 192K 
cache memory and there are five slots 
available for future hardware. Portico is 
already considering a 16 bit upgrade. This 
upgrade will be an 8086 cord and is planned 
for October. 

The structual foam case is square and 
cumbersome though it does give the 
machine a sort of classical look. The 
keyboard hooks onto the main unit 
covering the screen and disk drives. 

The lack of any handles is a real surprise . 
The machine may have desktop presenta- 
tions but you do need to be able to move it 
around. Even two hand-holds knocked in 
the side would have done. 

Keyboard 

The keyboard is a separate 86 key unit with 
a pleasant feel. It has a full complement of 
keys — numeric pad, cursor cluster and ten 
function keys. The qwerty section has an 
'original' layout, the most disturbing 
feature being the positioning of (a)/. ! ' and 
< > between the home keys and RE- 
TURN 

From an ergonomic point of view, the 
keyboard appears to be far too flat . Portico 
may be trying to encourage the strange 
habit of typing with a keyboard on your 
knee. 

Visions of non-typing executives, feet 
on desk, one finger anxiously search- 
ing for the key marked RTN. For most 
people. I suspect the classic Miracle stance 
to involve two paperback books, or 
perhaps a rolled up PCN. shoved under the 
keyboard. 

A Reset key is provided and this sensibly 
needs the combination SHIFT-RESET- 
RESET to actually reset the machine. The 
function keys can be simply programmed 
using the SETKEYS utility. 

It's a shame that the whole keyboard 
isn’t so easily reprogrammed. For a start, 
the left arrow docs a backspace and delete 
in CP/M. The DEL key does the rather 
more useless delete and echo. Again, 
inconsistent with the applications prog- 
rams. 

The other wonderful trick is that 
pressing the Escape key six times on the 
trot lands you in the Miracle's monitor 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 2*. 1983 





PCN PRO-TEST 


Top: The Miracle » 3B6K dish drives. Below: 
External controls are (or brightness and on/off 


ning to see the need for graphic displays 
Again, it seems odd to have launched a 
machine without them. 

Storage 

The Miracle comes with two 386K byte 
floppies (Portico quotes 4<K)K and MM)K 
elsewhere — 386K is w hat you actually get 
louse). The drives work perfectly and have 
a couple of very special features — 
intelligence and a 64K cache memory . 
Neither is unique but both are very nicely 
implemented. 

The drives can sense when a disk has 
been changed and automatically log in new 
disks. To experienced CP M hacks, that 
means never having to type Control-C. To 
more usual users, it makes it less easy to 
make dangerous mistakes. The intelli- 
gence is very welcome, especially since it 
couples with the disk naming and logging 
provided by 'The Guide'. 

The other feature is the cache memory 
controlled by a program called CACHE 
.COM. This is auto-run as standard when 
you boot the Miracle. 

The extra 64K memory is used as a buffer 
between the real memory and the disk . The 
Cache stores data that is frequently being 
requested by the computer, such as 
directory information. When the compu- 
ter next asks for the information, it is 
available almost instantly rather than 
having to come off the disk. 

The system is surprisingly intelligent. 


Top: The Miracle Is a good looking all-in-one unit 
weighing 2 Ribs. Right: A shoulder bag is provided 
to allow you to carry the otherwise immobile 
machine. 

program. The monitor I love, but the way 
of getting there seems to be out of the 
Wizard of Oz — you know . click your heels 
together and twirl round three times . . . 

I discovered this by accident. I was in the 
user friendly Guide and it had told me on at 
least one occasion to press Escape to go 
back to the main menu. I did and it didn't. I 
pressed Escape again. No luck. On the 
sixth try. magic! Back in the monitor. 

It had to be a bug. It took a while to 
convince myself that six presses of 
Escape really did drop you out of any 
application program . It is crazy to give such 
a common interrupt key such drastic 
powers. 

Screen 

The Miracle has a built-in 10-inch green 
monitor making it perfectly possible touse 
the system for long periods of time. Your 
only control is a brightness knob on the 
front left of the case. The quality was 
perfectly adequate though focus may have 


been a touch soft and the screen has no 
anti-glare coating. 

It is a standard 80 column by 25 line 
display with two possible text attributes, 
inverse and dim so you've got a standard 
and adequate display. But the Miracle has 
only 128 block graphic characters. Even 
deadly serious business users are begin- 


K.'N SEPTEMBER " SEPTEMBER 2H. l>AO 




WE HAVE MORE FOR 64! 

For the serious user .. . 

BUSICALC £39. BUSIWRITER £39 (disk) £49 (cartridge). VIZAWRITE £69. VIZASPELL £59. SPP 
STATISTICS £175, 1541 BACKUP £10 

Programs of general interest 

ARROW (makes tape faster than disk!) £39. PRINTLINK £26. PETLINK £32. MUSIC 64 £6 

For the programmer . . . 

VICTREE (Basic 4. toolkit functions etc) £49, GRAPHIX 64 £10. COMPACTOR £8, TAGSORT £10. 
SUPERSORT £22, ZOOM (super monitor) £10, MIKRO ASSEMBLER £50, RENUMBER £7, TAPE 
MERGE APPEND £7 

Arcade games (all £8 each) 

STIX, CRAZY KONG, 3-D GLOOPER, TANK ATAK, KAKTUS, MANGROVE 

Adventure games (all £12 each) new low prices — phone for details 

COSMIC CAPERS, CRACKS OF FIRE, GOBLIN TOWERS, FORESTLAND. STREETS OF 
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Fantasy games 

LORD OF THE BALROGS £6, HALLS OF DEATH £8 

Add £2 for programs on disk 4- Prices exclude VAT * Post free 


SUPERS0FT 


Winchester House, Canning Road, Wealdstone, 
Harrow, Middlesex HA3 7SJ 
Telephone: 01-861 1166 


Phone today for your FREE catalogue! 



The Plug is available from dealers or direct from the manufacturer 


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT 

Power International Limited 2A Isambard Brunei Road, 
Portsmouth. Hampshire. POI 2DU. Tel. (0705) 756715 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1W3 




YOU WILL NEVER AGAIN 
HAVE TO WASTE TIME 
WAITING FOR YOUR PRINTER 


MICROBUFFER ALLOWS YOU 
TO PRINT AND PROCESS 
SIMULTANEOUSLY. 

Microbuffer will instantly increase 
your efficiency — and eliminate 
the frustration of waiting for your 
slowpoke printer. 

Now you can simply dump your 
printing data directly to Microbuffer 
and continue processing. 
Microbuffer accepts the data as 
fast as your computer can send. It 
stores the data in its own memory 
buffer, then takes control of your 
printer. 

THERE IS A MICROBUFFER 
FOR ANY COMPUTERPRINTER 
COMBINATION. 


Whatever your system, there is a 
specific Microbuffer designed to 
accommodate it. 



FOR APPLE II COMPUTERS, 
Microbuffer II features on board 
firmware for text formatting and 
advanced graphics dump routines. 
Both serial and parallel versions 


have a power-efficient low- 
consumption design. Special 
functions include Basic listing 
formatter, self-test, buffer zap, and 
transparent and maintain modes. 
The 16K model is priced at $259 
and the 32K, at $299. 



FOR EPSON PRINTERS, Microbuffer/ E 
comes in two serial versions — 

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and two parallel versions — 16K 
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software handshaking at baud 
rates up to 19,200. Both interfaces 
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from $159 to $279. 


ALL OTHER COMPUTER/PRINTER 
COMBINATIONS are served by the 
stand-alone Microbuffer In-line. 

The serial stand alone will 
support different input and output 
baud rates and different hand- 
shake protocol. Both serial and 
parallel versions are available in a 
32K model at $299 or 64K for 
$349. Either can be user-upgraded 
to a total of 256K with 64K add-ons 
— just $179 each. 

SIMPLE TO INSTALL. 

Microbuffer II is slot-independent. 

It slips directly inside the Apple II 
in any slot except zero. 

Microbuffer/ E mounts easily 
inside the existing auxiliary slot 
directly inside the Epson printer. 

The stand-alone Microbuffer is 
installed in-line between virtually 
any computer and any printer. 

MKROBUFFER FROM 
PRACTICAL PERIPHERALS. 

So what are you waiting for? Write 
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Westlake Village, CA 91362 USA 
(213)991-8200 • TWX 910-336-5431 



| PCN PRO-TEST 

^mmkP 



<21 


Sectors of the disk that haven't been asked 
for for a while arc ejected from the cache to 
make room for ner information. All disk 
writes go immediatly to the actual disk for 
security reasons, though only those sectors 
that have been changed are actually 
written. 

All this is invisible to the user. All he gets 
to see is a system which is outperforming a 
great many of its rivals. The system 
particularly succeeds with programs that 
use a lot of overlays (such as Wordstar) 
where the frequent swopping into memory 
of bits of program happens so much 
quicker. 

For those that understand the cache 
system, two utilities LOCK and UNLOCK 
add to its usefulness. These fix certain files 
into the cache memory, effectively letting 
you use it as a primitive RAM disk. 

Just like ‘intelligent’ disk drives, a cache 
memory isn't a unique idea. But it is done 
well on the Miracle and certainly enhances 


its performance When hard disk Miracles 
emerge ( probably with 3V^ inch Kodimes ) . 
the cache can be extended to I92K to cope. 
The success of the cache system as 
demonstrated here is yet another good 
example of why it should become standard 
issue on new machines. 

Interfaces 

The Miracle has the standard range of 
interfacing you'd expect on a business 
machine — two RS232 ports and a 
Centronics port. These live in the hatch at 
the back of the machine along with its 
mains cable. 

The ports are delightfully sited on the 
end of ribbon cables. Portico keeps its 
clean machine look yet you can still reach 
over and plug something in without having 
to turn the machine round. It's a great idea 
but an extra couple of inches of cable would 
have helped. 

There's plenty of room for further 


options to be added. An RS422 interface, 
for a network system, is already on the 
cards. And all manner of things could 
easily be added. 

Software 

The Portico puts itself firmly in the 
Osborne class by coming with a heap of 
free software. There's CP/M with its 
standard utilities including the assembler 
system — ASM. DDT. ED ct al. The 
normal user can avoid CP/M in total by 
using Decision System's 'The Guide’, a 
user friendly front end. The Chang labs' 
suite is Memoplan (a word processor). 
Fileplan (a file handler) and Profitplan (a 
spreadsheet). Iansyst’sIANKEY provides 
a typing tutor. 

Finally, you get a copy of the top 
financial planning package Micro- 
modeller. This seems to be a cunning bit of 
vertical market thinking. As a Micro- 
modeller machine, the Miracle is going to 


PCN SEPTEMBER " SEPTEMBER 2X. WK3 








-HARDWARE- 



have special appeal to a large number of its 
intended customers. 

A word about the Miracle's machine 
code monitor. It's a pleasure to see such a 
program in a new business machine. The 
monitor is a dead simple affair. It lets you 
dump and alter memory, reset the 
machine . or start the Z80 off at a particular 
location. 

It won't be of much use as a program- 
ming tool (you've got DDT for that) but it 
has a number of uses on a standard CP/M 
system. 

The most obvious is restarti ng a program 
is memory. Many CP/M programs are 
loaded from disk as they are needed. The 
moment the command finishes, it is left 
lying around in memory. Try the command 
and again and CP/M loads it again. 


‘The software 
incorporates some 
pretty advanced 
and clever ideas’ 


Now it doesn't really matter on the 
Miracle because the command will just be 
copied straight out of the cache memory. 
But on a normal system . it would take ages . 
On the Miracle . press Escape six times and 
G100 from the monitor to restart the 
program where it lies. 

All sorts of crashes and patches can be 
made and recovered using the monitor and 
there’s never any problem getting stuck in 
it. G RETURN will warm start CP/M and 
put you straight back in the system. 

Meanwhile back in the land of the naive 
user, the Miracle putson a brave face using 
'The Guide' from Decision Systems. This is 
a complete front-end system that hides 
CP/M away and provides a simple step-by- 
step way to run your machine. The Guide is 
a very impressive program. It looks after 
your disks, giving them names, telling you 
when you need to make new copies and 
even where you can buy new disks. 

It keeps track of everything. Ask for the 
typing tutor and it tells you to pop your 
I ANKEY disk in to the left hand disk drive 
and so on. It provides copious disk 
information and management facilities 
and can be expanded and maintained to 
look after new programs as you buy them. 
However, it works in a slow but sure way. 
There are no shortcuts. 

The Guide rapidly becomes too long 
winded and cumbersome. Everything, 
is verified. What do you want to do? You 
key a number. Do you want to do such and 
such? You answer yes or no. Such and such 
— press RETURN tocontinue. And so on. 
It isn’t even consistent; the RETURN key 
is sometimes necessary, others not. The 
Escape occasionally returns you to a main 
menu. 


The big joke occurs towards the end of 
the eight odd questions needed to produce 
a list of files on the disk. You have to use a 
CP/M ambiguous file spec to select the files 
you want to look at. The idea is to avoid 
learning CP/M. 

Incidentally . eight questions isa lot to go 
through to look at a disk . In CP/M you have 
to learn to type the command DIR (for 
directory). It’s even funnier on the Mira- 
cle . Boot its standard CP/M master and you 
can look at a list of disk files by pressing the 
key marked FI . 

You could, of course, add facilities to 
look at the disk directory in a simple way 
straight from The Guide's main menu . It is 
a very versatile program. You could do all 
sorts of things. But you would need to 
know CP/M first. 

Again, reactions are mixed on Memo- 
plan. Fileplan and Profitplan. The prog- 
rams have some clever and unique features 
— the word processor (Mcmoplan) for 
example can handle up to seven documents 
at once. You can skip between them at will . 
It is useful for preparing memos and 
reports. 

Memoplan is also one of the safest word 
processors about. Pause for a moment and 
it stores all your work on disk. It is like a 
jotter, your writing stays on it until you 
explicitly write it to a CP/M file and wipe it 
from the pad. Even pulling the plug usually 
won’t damage the text. So the software 
incorporates some pretty advanced and 
clever ideas. 

Fileplan isn’t really a database. It is a 
clever little indexing system — great for 
handling lists and I suspect more use on the 
average desk than some great monolithic 
relational database. 

The trouble with these Chang labs 
programs is that the good ideas just don't 
go all the way through . The documentation 
has been mentioned and the user interfaces 
are in a similar state. They aren't even 
consistent across the three package. 

Programs which could be easy to operate 
involve long sequences of control codes. 
And simple things like printing page 
headings on Memoplan turn out to involve 
long and complex CP/M level commands. 
And the programs seem to have silly limits. 
Try double spacing on Memoplan. Maybe 
it can be done but there doesn't seem to be 
a simple way. As for the error messages, 
my favourite was ’Field out of range: Call 
your dealer'. I hope that's somebody's 
private joke that will be removed from the 


next release. 

In short, it will take some effort to get 
used to the Chang labs software . And when 
you do. you may find yourself moving on to 
more well known packages such as Word- 
star and Multiplan. 

Both Iankey and Micromodeller are less 
important. Iankey because it is a ‘throw- 
away’ extra, albeit a valuable and effective 
package. Micromodeller because it 
appeals to the more specialist user who will 
know the package and be looking at the 
Miracle only as a vehicle to run it. 

The Miracle's software is more complete 
than many. It docs lack a high level 
language included in the price. Of course, 
you don’t need one on a business system 
but it still seems to be something of an 
omission. 

The Guide provides a far better intro- 
duction to computing than the raw ’A>’ 
that faces a newcomer who gets landed 
with learning CP/M. The Chang labs 
software makes the Miracle a good general 
purpose tool, though I suspect many will 
move onto more popular packages. 

Conclusion 

The Miracle is something of a pleasant 
surprise. It seems a sensible system with a 
clever hardware design and enough free 
software to put it into the value-for-money 
stakes. 

It isn't the most advanced business 
system, but nonetheless is capable of a 
great deal of useful work around the office. 
Being ‘old fashioned’ also means having a 
well known and reliable design . Probably 
the most important aspect of the system is 
the level of support which Portico and its 
dealers intend to offer 

You might well consider the Miracle 
alongside systems like the Osborne, and 
Epson 0X10. The choice is very much a 
personal one. and the Miracle's touch of 
class' may weigh heavily in its favour. 


‘It is capable 
of a great 
deal of useful 
office work’ 


ROM memory 
Text format 


0& language 


£1,795 

Z80.4MHz 

64K + 64K cache memory 
4K 

80x25 

86 keys, numeric pad. cursor cluster. 10 function keys 

2x386K floppies 

CP/M 

Portico Technology, 01-735 8171 

The Guide. Memoplan. Fileplan. Profitplan. Transfer, 
Iankey. Micromodellcr 


PCN SEPTEMBER 12 SEPTEMBER M. IUW 






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Microcomputers. Peripherals, Software. Service Contracts 


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BBC Model B 

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BBC Compatible Disk Drives 

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Juki 6 1 00 Daisywheel with 2K Buffer . . £425.00 fst*Rt 

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Southall. Middx. Tel: 01-574 5271 
Open SIX DAYS A WEEK — 10am-8am 



PCN PRO-TEST 


PERIPHERALS 


It has finally arrived . . . Brian Cadge test drives the new Dragon disk drive and gives his approval. 

Drive your Dragon 


S ix months later. Dragon'sofficial disk 
drives have finally arrived. As prom- 
ised , the cost is £275 for a single sided . 
double density drive and controller. This is 
about £25 cheaper than the norm, but still 
£100 more than the Dragon 32 itself 
The review drive arrived with disk 
controller, connecting lead, power lead 
and preliminary manual, but no disks. 
Setting it all up is easy. The power supply is 
built-in. explaining why the case is some- 
what long at 14in. but this doesn't seem to 
cause any serious overheating . even during 
prolonged use. as the coated steel case is 
well ventilated. 

The disk controller and DOS (Disk 
Operating System) are in the form of an 
elongated cartridge connected to the drive 
by an 1 Kin ribbon cable. The whole set-up 
looks very neat, except the controller 
cartridge, which protrudes 4in out of the 
side of the Dragon — preventing the drive 
from fitting snuggly next to the computer. 

The disk drive itself measures 14 x 6 x 
4.5in and has room for two drives. The top 
half has a plastic shield covering the gap for 
a second drive unit. It's a fairly standard set 
up — 5V4in, 40 tracks. 18 sectors per track, 
each sector holding 256 bytes. This gives 
I80K when formatted, but only 171 K is 
available after the DOS has set up its 
directory tracks. A small red LED shows 
when a disk is in use . but there is nothing to 
warn you that you must not insert or 
remove a disk while this is lit. 

With the drive connected and the power 
turned on. the most noticeable point was 
that the display quality on the TV had 
deteriorated even further — fiddling with 
the aerial cable and moving the drive 
further away reduced the interference, but 
it was still noticeable. The usual sign-on 
message appears, then the screen clears 
and it announces DRAGONDOS 1.0. 

New functions 


because there are so many. Some codes are 
even repeated — FD can mean Faulty Data 
or Directory Full! 

Every error code from 0 to 166 is listed at 
the end of the manual . This is the only place 
I can really fault it — the messages are not 
explained, for example. CC means Cyclic 
Redundancy Error, but it is not mentioned 
anywhere else in the book, and could cause 
real headaches to people trying to work out 
what it means. Some codes, eg UF. have 
absolutly no explanation . UF Error is error 
34, but what does it mean? In fact it means 
Undefined Function, but you won’t find it 
in the manual. 

To be fair, this is only a preliminary 
version of the manual . with the usual errata 
sheet included. 

BEEP is a new command which the 
manual describes as giving ’An acceptable- 
sounding Beep'. It is certainly different 
from that given by the sound command, 
but whether it warrants a whole new 
command is doubful. WAIT n will pause 
the program for n milliseconds, and SWAP 
x,y if another very useful function which 
swaps the values of x and y, without going 
all through A*X:X«Y: = A. 

Disk commands 

Moving onto the disk commands, these are 
generally well documented, although a 
quick-reference card like the one for Basic, 
or even an index to the manual would have 
been nice. The disk controller can handle 
up to four drives . single or double sided , 80 
or 40 tracks, which means just about any 
5V!»in drive can be configured with it. If you 


want the controller cartridge on its own to 
set up with your own drives, this will cost 
you £50. 

The formatting command is DSKINIT. 
Typing just this assumes a single Dragon 
drive, and you can type DSKINIT drive, 
sides, tracks for setting up your own type of 
drive. A disk must be formatted first in 
order to set up the tracks and directory. 
This only needs to be done once to a disk 
unless you want to erase the whole thing. 

BACKUP is a useful command which 
backs up a complete disk to another one. If 
you only have one drive, the Dragon tells 
you when to insert the source disk and 
when to insert the destination disk. Many 
swaps are necessary, depending on how 
full the disk is. and it takes some time to 
complete — sore fingers result. This 
command seems to have no protection to 
lock, so presumably it will be possible to 
copy any disk, including professional 
software. This is inviting people to pirate 
software, but companies will no doubt 
quickly find a solution to this. 

Basic and machine code programs can 
be saved as they can on the tape recorder, 
using SAVE instead of CSAVE. The 
cassette system can still be used, even with 
the drive connected. 

Programs can be reloaded with LOAD 
or RUN “PROG", which will load and 
then autorun a Basic program, or CHAIN 
“PROG",n, which will load and run the 
program from line n with all variables 
intact. MERGE has also been added and 
allows a program on disk to be merged with 
the program already in the memory. 


34* 



The cartridge program is not a completely 
new Basic; it simply adds commands to the 
existing one by altering the system vari- 
ables at power up. In addition to the 26 disk 
operating commands, nine new Microsoft 
functions have been added to enhance the 
Basic. (See table I, page 34). 

Typing AUTO L.I produces line num- 
bers automatically, starting at line L in 
increments of I . This is an extremely useful 
function when typing long programs in, 
and speeds up entry by 20 per cent. Error 
handling has been improved by ERROR 
GOTO n. which causes the program to 
jump to line n if an error occurs. 

ERR will give the number of the last 
error code, and ERL will give the line at 
which it occurred. Many new error mes- 
sages are added by the disk system, but 
they still stick to the silly two letter code 
method which is difficult to remember 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. I 



◄33 



TABLE ONE — List of new commands: 


^NPRO-TEST 

There are also facilities to copy one file 
to another disk or the same disk, and to 
rename a file . Files are erased from the disk 
with the KILL command. To prevent 
accidentally KILLing a valuable program 
you can PROTECT it — an inverse P’ 
appears in the directory listing next to the 
program name, and the file cannot be 
erased. You can remove this with PRO- 
TECT OFF 

As well as an eight character filename, a 
file type specifier of three characters 
appears in the directory . This is either BAS 
for Basic programs. BIN for machine code. 
DAT for data files, or BAK for a backup 
copy They appear as PROGNAME BAS 
320, this being the number of bytes on the 
disk used. At the end of the directory, the 
number of free bytes available on the disk 
is shown - this can also be called with the 
FREE function. 

You can also assign your own system of 
file specifier if you wish. 

The file handling is one of the DOS’s 
best features Up to ten files can be open at 
once, each one simultaneously for input 
and output, and they may be accessed as 
serial or random access files using 
FRF. AD, FWRITE and CREATE I 
found I could easily transfer a database 
program from cavsette to disk after only a 
few hours of use. reading in the cassette 
and restoring it on disk. I then used the 
random access file as memory, which 
effectively gives you over 100K of data 
‘memory’ . As access time is so quick — this 
is one of the fastest SIAin drives I have seen 
— you hardly notice the difference from 
ordinary memory . Wit h a dual disk system . 
the Dragon is now more than suited to a 
small business. 


You can also create your own file 
handling, with the ability to write to 
specific sectors on the disk and read back 
from them, for true random accew. 
However, you will need a separate disk for 
the data to avoid the possibility of 
overwriting programs already stored on 
the disk itself. 


The manual covers almost all file 
handling briefly but concisely, except for 
random access files, which are missed out 
until the errata sheet. As it is unlikely that a 
newcomer to Basic would have a disk drive 
anyway, author Alan Mayer has made a 
fair attempt for a preliminary 58 page 
manual. 

The DOS uses some workspace memory 
— IViK. to be exact. This has rather 
stupidly been put between location 1536 
and 3071 , if graphics page one. The Basic 
graphics are not affected — page two is 
now page one . and so on . but you may have 
trouble with machine code programs, 
especially any that load into this area from 
cassette. These would include all of J 
Morrison's games ( Bonka , Droids etc) and 
the latest batch from Microdeal (Cuthbert, 
Morocco Grand Prix etc). 

On power up, you have 23,335 bytes 
free. Most programs will run without 
changing, but some, especially long adven- 
ture games, will no longer fit straight in. 

Verdict 

Dragon seems to have got it just about right 
with this disk drive, albeit rather late. The 
metal case and built in power supply are a 
great improvement over the Dragon 
computer itself. The cartridge connection 
is a little dubious. But I encountered no 
hardware problems, and there are no 
obvious bugs in the Basic, and the manual 
is a fair attempt for a preliminary one. 

Just whether you need a disk drive is 
another matter — £275 is a lot of money if 
you just want to load games in a couple of 
seconds. On the other hand, if you have 
need for mass storage then the cost is 
certainly worth it. for this is the best of the 
drives available for the Dragon 32. 


ET Prints directory of disk 

SAVE Sav*s Basic or machine cod* pre 

l oadt Basic oc machine cotff pn 
RUN “PPOC" loads and nmt Basic program* 
CHAW loads and rum Basic programs 

COPY Copies fifes to another disk or same* 

RENAME Renames a fife 

MU Erases a fife from the disk 

Marges fife from disk to on* in RAM 


Mokes backup copy of whole dish 
Terns on or off automatic verifying 
Gives number of free byte* on disk 
Gives the length of a fife in byte* 
Writes a record to a fife 


Reads a record from a fife I lib* LINE INPUT) 
Reserves disk space for a fife 


Write* a record to a specific sector 
Reads a record from a specific sector 
Gives Mgbest location used by Basic 


SWAPX.T 


Boots a new operating system into RAM 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 2R. IW3 



PCN PRO-TEST 


Can a light-pen system fulfill your dream? Richard King reckons it’s quite on the cards. 


Apple lit up 


i f ever there was an item which shows 
that the really great inventions never 
seem to make the headlines, the Gibson 
LPS II must be it. It’s been available for 
some time now. but surprisingly little 
excitement has been generated by it. 

LPS stands for Light Pen System. The II 
is because there was a I. but that’s where 
the similarities end. Both are light-pens, 
but the newer version is vastly more 
capable. 

Presentation 

The Gibson LPS II comes packed in an 
eight-inch disk box. providing maximum 
protection for the contents. I nside there’s a 
lump of foam . carved out to fit the pen and 
the card, disk and documentation. 

The system-programs are openly de- 
clared to be preliminary, as is the docu- 
mentation. From reports, it appears that 
Gibson Labs has issued several updates 
already, with many more to come. The 
system is expected to be augmented 
continuously, and the final documentation 
is to be in the form of a ring-binder, so that 
new chapters can be added. A very good 
idea, which it would be good to see used 
more widely. 

Gibson also plans to produce the Pen- 
master Newsletter to keep users in touch 
and up to date with developments. With 
promises like this, the support should be 
excellent. 

As reviewed, the documentation con- 
sists of two AS pamphlets and a couple of 
notes, which clarify and correct certain 
points of the installation, particularly for 
Apple lie owners. It should be mentioned 
that the LPS II is supposed to work with the 
He. and in view of the smoothness of the 
system, I can well believe it. However, it 
was not actually checked, and there's no 
mention in the documentation of using it in 
the lie Extended High Resolution mode. 

In general, the system is well described, 
and apart from mentioning some unneces- 
sary chip juggling, and a dangerously 
confusing reference to a jumper on the 
card, it is adequate. You are told to cut the 
jumper if you aren't putting the card in Slot 


7. DON'T DO IT .... the newer cards 
don't need it. 

As supplied, the system is only usable 
from Applesoft. The A: -hook is used to call 
the Pentrak driver, and so all the explana- 
tion refers to this language. A minor 
problem occurs here if you have an Integer 
Basic machine, since the boot-procedure 
will not be the ‘PR£6 .off you go', but 
then if you have a machine that old. you'll 
know all about that. 

Construction 

The hardware consists of a card which 
plugs into an Apple expansion connector, 
to which is wired a thing that looks like a 
Biro without a refill, on the end of a long 
wire. This is the lightpen itself. The card 
carries some essential (and highly original) 
electronics. 

Gibson Labs has taken the unusual 
step of encapsulating the entire thing in 
black resin, thus preventing anyone from 
copying the design. 

Installation 

According to the instructions, the LPS II is 
generally meant to reside in Slot 7. which is 
provided with video signals on the Apple. 
For owners of lies, which don't have these 
signals on Slot 7. and Apple II owners in 
Britain, who tend to have colour-cards in 7. 
it is necessary to link up a wire, which is 
thoughtfully provided with a test-probe on 
the end . If this is done . the LPS 1 1 card can 
then be put in any slot. 

After plugging in the card, the pen cable 
is led forward so that when the lid is 
replaced it comes out of the front. I didn't 
like this since it means that the lid has to 
bend to accommodate the cable . but it does 
provide a very adequate method of holding 
the cable. 

Getting started 

Getting the system running is so simple and 
reliable that in contrast practically all other 
peripherals seem positively heavy handed . 
All that is necessary is to make sure 
Applesoft is up, and boot the disk. The 
driver software (called Pentrak) loads 



itself into the top of RAM. and then 
rebuilds the DOS buffers below. 

This neat trick, also used by PI.E and a 
few other programs, results in a utility so 
firmly embedded in the system that almost 
nothing can touch it. not even hitting 
RESET, changing language from Apple- 
soft to Integer Basic and back again, or 
running any number of user-programs. 

Of course, powering-down and re- 
booting DOS will destroy it . but the system 
can easily be restarted by running the 
HELLO program. 

On booting the Pentrak driver, the 
&-vector is set. and a whole extra set of 
commands become valid (see table page 
38). Another clever notion in the software 
is that any previously loaded ^-utilities arc 
unaffected, and will run quite normally, 
even after the Pentrak loader is run. 

That's what the manual said, anyway. In 
practice I found this to be almost true. 
GPLE seemed to need a CTRL-Y restart 
before it would work reliably, but I can't 
deny that it was there. 

TTre system comes up with a menu which 
uses the pen to select from 12 programs. 

The first thing to do is to calibrate the 
system, so that the pen is tracked accurate- 
ly. This is because the position value 
returned by the pen will depend upon the 
monitor being used. 

Calling up the Calibrate program puts 
up a series of test-grids, and the perform- 
ance of the system can be altered until the 
desired accuracy is reached. The Pentrak 
driver is saved at the end . providing a final . 
fast-loading version. If you have more than 
one monitor, with noticeably different 
characteristics, you can save several 
copies. 

The manual says that if you find that you 
have to turn the screen contrast up to an 


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found myself grinning with idiotic pleasure 
when my one line programs not only 
worked, hut did quite amazing things. 

The Pcntrak driver was actually doing 
the really hard bits, but even so, a dozen or 
so&-calls in a moderately complicated line 
doesn’t look like it can do much. There 
aren't enough bytes there, are there? 

You bet they can! I-ook at the (unlock- 
ed) programs on the disk. The longest is 
only 7K . and that does most of the jobs that 
many multi-thousand pound CAD systems 
do. and with little loss in resolution 

Apart from the sophistication of the 
driver, the applications which use it show 
signs of some very creative minds at work. 
One result is the Info-Flow(tm) menu- 
system which is used in Pen-painter, 
Pattern Editor and Animator. 

This shows graphically the available 
options and the associated data-structures 
so that the valid operations can be clearly 
understood by the user. By using the 
lightpen to point at the chosen operation, 
a very clean, neat and comprehensible 
control system has been produced. 

Though this system has not as yet been 
used outside the graphics programs on the 
disk. I feel that the ideas should be 
considered by others as useful techniques. 

It seems that so many people are so 
impressed with the Gibson LPS II that 
many software writers are including the 
necessary programming to handle it in 
their systems. 

The Addendum says that Woz liked it 
and bought one on sight, that Apple 
Computer has several and may well use it in 
its own software and that Stoneware’s GPS 
Graphics Processing System will soon 
support it. 

Verdict 

Overall .this would seem to be one of those 
items for which the eventual uses will be so 
wide that we can't begin to guess them. 
Certainly the LPS II is so close to being a 
‘finished artifact’ that it must be a worth- 
while addition to almost any system. 

When the final release software becom- 
es available, the LPS II will be recognised 
as a classic device, which will open up yet 
more applications for the Apple. 


Protect Gibson LPS II AppMoMn Lightpen 
system for Apple-bus M — ele ct arar Gibson 
Laboratories Suppter Pete & Pam Computers 
Price £249 95 approx 



Text primary 

TS 

Text secondary 

LP 

Lo-Res primary 

IS 

Lo-Res secondary 

HP 

Hi-Res primary 

NS 

Hi-Res secondary 

CHP/CHS 

Clear Hi-Res primary/secondary 

DHP/DHS 

Draw Hi-Res primary/secondary 


TKACH Ik. ». opt op* • I Follow the pm, using the options. 

PEN (h. *. opt. opt . . .) Rather like TRACK but for any screen mode. 

WRTTE Ik. r. string I Just what it says. 

FRAME (1 TO *2 AT yl FOR n) Make a window. Otd contents can be preserved. 


Sib. r,« 
ZOOM fb, v) 
CLEANUP 
START 

CUCH! I pitch, d 
OFFSET Ik, vl 
DOTS 


ft . . .1 Draw cross-hairs at specified point. 

Copy part of HJ-Res screen to Text Primary. 

Try to tidy up the screen I emergencies only I 
Set up the pen for a new job, and go to it 
tionl Make a beep. 

Return current offset if 0,0. Otherwise set It 
FUI screen with dots on an 8 x 8 grid. 

Draw a line wherever the pen goes. 

Set mirroring for SKETCH. Mind-bending to watch. 
Invert colours of current screen, 
which you shouldn't mess with are FIX, SELECT, FILL 


2V n 

LINES (on, off) 
RT 

MLOVLO 


HTM/VTM 


Go back to Applesoft when a key is struck. 

Go back to Applesoft If the pen doesn't move 
Draw crosshairs through cursor, Mink at on-off rates. 
Makes complicated drawing easier and more reliable. 
Provide only Horizontal/Vertical crosshairs. 

Track only Horizon atal/Vertkal pen motion, like a T-square. 
Horizontal/Verticai trigger margin. Used for fancy stuff. 
Reduce pen-resolution for extra precision. Think about It 
Use mixed text and graphics. 

Graphics only. 

Use typeface number n. 

No tracking-cursor. 


uncomfortable level, you can remove the 
end of the pen. I tried everything short of 
ceremonial decapitation with a scalpel , but 
I couldn't do it. A tight push-fitting ’snoot’ 
would be a good idea here, since it doesn't 
look like the pen is replaceable. This detail 
should be made reversible. 

In use 

After the calibrated driver has been saved, 
the main menu reappears again, and you 
can start to use the pen. Several of the 
options available are simple demos, which 
don’t really have much to do with the pen. 
but demonstrate features of the Pcntrak 
driver. There are also some useful prog- 


rams. which give a tantalising glimpse of 
the system’s capabilities. 

These are Penpainter. Pattern Editor. 
Boxes. Circles. Grid Draw. Geomed. and 
Easyedit. Although they're a bit rough- 
edged and not terribly reliable, they’re 
quite usable. With them it’s quite possible 
to put out finished work, as you can see 
from the pictures. 

The main problem with these is incon- 
sistency in command structures and mis- 
sing facilities. For example . it doesn't have 
a SAVE option. 

It is a pleasure to use the pen. Having 
used lightpens before, and having read the 
respective documents. I was only too ready 
to be disappointed. I wasn't at all. and 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 2*. 1983 



PCN PRO-TEST 


This Microplot package for the Dragon cuts three ways. David Owen tests it in triplicate. 


Three-headed editor 


T he Dragon 32 is beginning to look a bit 
more convincing as a business partner 
these dats (pages 220-221 in last 
week's Micropaedia summarise the word 
processing, database and accounts and 
file-handling software now available). The 
Editor package from Microplot integrates 
some of these operations, for as well as 
being the editor that its name indicates, it 
also offers limited word processing and 
database management. 

Its £9.95 price-tag makes it seem an 
economic and convenient proposition. I 
tested it on a Dragon 32 linked to a Radio 
Shack DMP200 printer. 

Features 

Programs or files of up to 360 records or 

• ‘THE REPLACE ft 
FACILITY ALLOWS 
ft ANY VARIABLE ft 
TO BE CHANGED 
ft IN A PROGRAM’ ft 

22K can be edited — that’s about six pages 
of A4 on the 32K machine. It means that 
most programs written in Basic can be 
edited using the quite powerful facilities. 

As a word processor it has distinct 
limitations, although for the home user it is 
probably adequate. Many of the limita- 
tions can be attributed directly to the 
machine itself — for instance, the Dragon’s 
small screen format makes a good word 
processor difficult unless one spends a fair 
amount on the program, and the keyboard 
‘jump’ inherent in the Dragon causes 
problems with touch-typing. Used as a 
database, the Editor provides a good 
search facility with impressive speed. 

Presentation 

On first examination I was unimpressed 
with the documentation. It comes in the 
form of a typewritten A5 booklet of six 
pages. The first page describes the func- 
tions of the program and instructions to 
load. Pages two to five set out subroutines 
and access codes, and there's an abbrevi- 
ated list of keyboard functions. 

I would , however , like to have seen some 
examples in the manual. 

I must admit, though, that after an 
awkward start I got to know the program 
from the documentation. Although 
sparse. I found it to be better than others 
I've seen. And I found the manufacturer 
willing to help and advise. 

Getting started 

Loading the program caused no problem. 
There are two copies on the cassette and it 
loaded and ran first time. After the 


copyright statement the screen goes blank 
and a line of figures appears at the bottom 
of the screen with a flashing yellow cursor 
in the middle. It took me a while to work 
out what the figures meant: 

LINE 1 POS 1:255 EOF 0 

I was positioned at Line 1. Position 
(character) 1 . 255 characters per line and 
File 0. Here at first the documentation let 
me down; I do like to have a user friendly 
program which is menu-driven. But the 
absence of a menu was soon overcome as 
the program runs from simple single-letter 
commands. 

In use 

Editor The program will accept any file or 
Basic program as long as it is written in 
ASCII format. So before loading Editor 
you have to convert any program into the 
format assuming that it is originally saved 
in the more normal compressed form. 

Once converted, it is easy to load it into 
the Editor program following the screen 
prompts. 

The search facility of this part of the 
program enables you to make a fast check 
to see, for example, what string variables 
you may have used in your original 
program. The REPLACE facility allows 
any variable to be changed. This is 
particularly useful if you want to use the 
Editor to merge two separate programs. 

When loading two programs into the 
machine there’s no danger of lines being 
overwritten since Editor does not need line 
numbers, but when it’s being used to merge 
two programs, activating the VALUE 
function will sort the lines into numerical 
order and duplicate line-numbers will 
appear consecutively. 

Files can be saved onto cassette in the 
new form — but it will be saved in ASCII 
and therefore you will have to reload it into 
the machine later and resave in compress- 
ed Basic. The load and save functions are 
also used in the same way when operating 
the program as a word processor or 
database. 

Database This requires a bit of thought on 
the part of the user. The manual fails to 
show examples of this function. I tried 
typing in a short record collection database 
and it worked, but without screen prompts 
the program leaves it up to you to 
remember the format you’ve evolved. 

A useful function of the program is that 
you can nominate any single line-length of 
up to 255 characters — unlike many of the 
dedicated database programs which limit 
you to about 30. This allows you to build 
up. say. a database of famous quotations. 

The ORGANISE or VALUE function 
makes for efficient use of a database. 
ORGANISE will sort a series of file 
records into alphabetical order and 
VALUE will do this numerically. 


For simple unsophisticated 
documents the Editor functions well. You 
can preset the line-length you wish to work 
to. say 64 characters, and then by using the 
JUSTIFY function you can type away and 
the machine will automatically format 
your text. 

There’s no automatic wordwrap, but 
when you get to three characters be' r c the 
end of a line there’s a beep warning. 
Pressing the RETURN key will automati- 
cally add spaces to the end of the line. 

Most normal editing features are in- 
corporated . so if you wish to search for and 
replace a particular word it can be done 
with one function — useful for addressing 
letters or correcting a recurring mistake. 

There’s an automatic centring com- 
mand. so a heading on a document will be 
positioned by the computer. 

Of course .there have to be compromises 
on a program of this sort. For the serious 
user the program does not allow any 
software-controlled commands to be sent 
to the printer. If you use a dot matrix 
printer such as an Epson you can’t instruct 
the printer to underline, change print style 
or alter the spacing during printing. 

While operating the program I did try to 
crash it but. apart from the machine 
appearing to hang up when I typed 
ENTER in error at one point, pressing the 
BREAK key and then typing GOTOl 
found all my text safely stored in memory. 

Verdict 

Overall I found the program does what it 
claims. You can spend a lot more money 
and get less value, but I would like to have 

ft ‘ANY SINGLE ft 

LINE LENGTH 
V» UP TO 255 ft 

CHARACTERS CAN 
11 BE NOMINATED' ft 

seen more informative documentation, 
both in the manual and on screen. 


Nmm Editor Appftutfaa Basic program editor, 
database, word processor fyftiw Dr.igon 32 
Price £9 95 Pabfteher Microplot. 19 The Earls 
Croft. Cheylesmore, Coventry, W Midlands 

Fancat Cassette language Basic ft 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1«3 




PCN PRO-TEST 


H 


1- 

1 


Logic Systems has produced a Toolkit for use with the BBC. Ted Ball tools up and reports. 


BBC uses Logic 


I n the dim and distant past (well not quite 
so distant) when computers were in- 
credibly expensive, many hobbyists had 
to be content with a machine with 1 K or less 
of RAM which could be programmed only 
in hexadecimal machine code. 

The ROM software in these machines 
was known as a machine code monitor. It 
allowed you to look at the contents of the 
computer’s memory, type in and run 
machine code programs, and it usually had 
a few extra features to help with debug- 
ging 

Hobby computers have grown since 
those days. The BBC Micro has a very 
powerful Basic and Assembler in ROM. 
The Basic and Avsembler have been 
designed to work together, so BBC Basic 
includes many features that were found in 
the traditional machine code monitor and 
allows you to write equivalents of some 
other monitor features in just a few lines. 
Because of this a machine code monitor for 
the BBC Micro does not need to include 
the simpler features usually found in a 
monitor, but should include some very 
powerful features to justify its existence. 

The Logic Systems Toolkit for the BBC 
Model B is a machine code monitor/ 
debugging aid that has. to some extent, 
been designed on this principle, but does 
not go quite far enough. 

Features 

The Toolkit gives you 13 commands which 
you can type in Basic immediate mode or 
include in Basic programs. The commands 
have a similar form to operating system 
commands, beginning with an asterisk, 
then a mnemonic for the command and the 
parameters for the command. 

Several of the commands can be easily 
duplicated in Basic, for example ‘CHECK 
XXXX YYYY which prints a hexadecimal 
checksum of the contents of memory 
between the hex addresses XXXX and 
YYYY. All you need to do this in Basic is: 
S% = 0: FOR I = &XXXX TO & YYYY. 
S% = S% + ?I: 

NEXT I: PRINT S% 

The Basic does take longer and involve 
more typing but is still sufficiently simple to 
make the ‘CHECK command appear 
redundant. 

Other Toolkit commands that give little 
improvement over what you can do easily 
in Basic are ‘FIND, which searches for a 
text string or a string of hex numbers, 
•HEX. which prints a hex and ASCII 
dump of memory . ‘MOVE which moves a 
block of memory . ‘MEM which allows you 
to store hex values in memory. *XEQT 
which calls a machine code program, and 
•BREAK which sets a breakpoint. 

Provided you are working on your own 
assembly language source code you can get 
a simple breakpoint facility in BBC Basic 


by inserting an RTS instruction where you 
want the breakpoint and running the 
machine code with the instruction PRINT 
USR (&XXXX) where &XXXX is the 
address of the machine code. This will give 
you an 8-digit hex number consisting of the 
contents of the processor's registers when 
the breakpoint was reached. The Toolkit's 
breakpoint function does give you more 
information, but not a lot more. 

Documentation 

The documentation for the Toolkit says 
that the *XEQT command has the same 
function as Basic's CALL and USR 
statements except that it allows you to set 
breakpoints, but there is another impor- 
tant difference. CALL and USR set the 
processor registers from the integer vari- 
ables A%, Y% and C%, while 

*XEQT sets the registers to zero. This 
makes it difficult to use the Toolkit for 
debugging a machine code subroutine that 
was designed to have parameters passed to 
it by a Basic program. 

The Toolkit does have commands that 
you can’t provide easily for yourself in 
Basic. *DIS disassembles machine code 
from the computer's memory . displaying it 
with assembly language mnemonics and 
standard syntax for addressing modes 
(there is one piece of standard syntax that 
could have been changed — the disassemb- 
ler uses a dollar sign to indicate hex 
numbers instead of the BBC's amper- 
sand). 

• RELOC relocates a machine code 
program, adjusting all the absolute addres- 
ses so the program will run at the new 
address. Of course, with the Assembler in 
ROM you don’t need to disassemble your 
own programs, and you can relocate your 
own programs by re-assembling to the new 
address. 

Disassemblers and rclocators do have 
legitimate uses on some computers, where 
you can't have the assembler and the 
monitor in memory at the same time. On 
the BBC their main use appears to be get- 
ting at other people’s programs where you 
have only the object code (naughty!). 

The most useful debugging aid in the 
Toolkit is the ‘STEP command, which 
steps through a machine code program one 
instruction at a time, and displays the 
contents of the registers and a disassembly 
of the next instruction. However, it takes a 
long time to step through a large program 
even though a subroutine is treated as a 
single instruction. To start single stepping 
in the middle of a program or inside a 
subroutine requires messing around with 
breakpoints. 

Presentation 

The cassette is clearly labelled and has the 
Toolkit program recorded on both sides. 


The instruction booklet is neatly 
printed, but consists of only eight small 
pages and tells you little more than the 
syntax for the commands and the minimum 
details of what the commands do. 

Because the instructions are so brief, 
a beginner at machine code will have 
difficulty understanding what the Toolkit 
is for. and even an experienced program- 
mer will have to put in some thought and 
experiment before discovering its full 
power and how to use it effectively. 

In use 

The Toolkit commands are easy to remem- 
ber and the syntax is fairly straightforward 
and obvious. It is also very fast in 
operation. For example the *DIS and 
•HEX commands print a screenful of 
information almost instantaneously. 

Many things are, however, tedious and 
could have been made easier by making the 
commands more versatile. If you want 
specific values in the registers when you 
start running a program with *XEQT or 
♦STEP you will first have to write a short 
program that loads these values and then 
jumps to the program you want to test. 

The loading instructions tell you what 
you should sec when the Toolkit has 
loaded. Although I got the Toolkit ready’ 
message I also got additional error mes- 
sages consistently — ‘No such variable’ 
from one side of the tape and ’Syntax error’ 
from the other. However, when I tried out 
the Toolkit all the commands worked as 
described in the booklet, and I didn’t find 
any bugs in the program. 

The Toolkit has error checking on the 
commands and gives error messages if you 
type in an incorrect command name . if the 
parameters are not correct hex numbers, 
or if you don’t give enough parameters for 
a command. 

Verdict 

Although the Toolkit works reliably and 
has some useful features it is not fully 
compatible with the features provided in 
BBC Basic for using machine code. Even 
its most useful commands are not versatile 
enough to make it worth recommending. 

RATING 



Overall value HI 

Name toolkit Application Machine code 
debugging a i,t Syeteai BBC Microcomputer. 
Model B Price £8 95 Publisher Logic Systems. 
12V. High Street. Cherry Hinton. Cambridge 
(0223)210669 Formal Cassette language 
Machine code 


40 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 2H. 19W 




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GAMEPLAY 


STINGS ANDTHINGS 


In play 


COMMODORE 64 

Sting in 
the tail 

Name Super Griddcrtpalsm 
Commodore 64 Mm £9.95 
PvUibir Terminal Software . 28 
Church Lane. Prcstwich, 
Manchester M25 5 AJ Fermat 
Cassette Language Machine code 
Other wateM Vic- 20MM Most 
retailers 

Scorpions are not the most 
lovable of creatures and in this 
game . they don't do anything to 
smarten their image. They are 
engaged in trying to sting you. 
You are unflatteringly repre- 
sented by a rolling-eyed, idioti- 
cally-smiling face. 

Objectives 

Starting on a large size grid . you 
must zoom around, passing 
over every line. Each time you 
complete a box. it is coloured 
in. 

You go on to the next level 
only when all the boxes are 
Tilled in 

Meanwhile, two scorpions 
are on the attack. You can put 
them off the scent by pressing 
the fire button which leaves a 
gap on the grid line, over 
which the scorpions cannot 
jump. 

This gap is sealed the next 
time you passover it. There are 
8 levels, each with different grid 
layouts. 

If you manage to succeed on 
level 8. the two scorpions invite 
a friend to tea. and. if you still 
survive, the party grows. You 
have three lives. 


An introductory burst of beepy 
music rapidly gets on your 
nerves since it is also played 
between rounds. You start (or 
rather your face does) in the top 
left of the grid. One scorpion 
setsoff from the upper right . the 
other from bottom left. The two 
scorpions, one white, one 
black, are animated. However, 
the black one didn't show up too 
well on my screen adding to my 
problems of survival. If you hit 
a deadend while hurtling 
around the grid you bounce 
back the way you came. 

Response to the joystick was 
a wee bit sluggish on occasion. 
If a scorpion catches you. the 
screen freezes, then shows the 
grid highlighted so as to clearly 
indicate what bits still need to 
be traversed. 

Although a very simple game 
with no frills, it is curiously 
addictive. It should be quite 
easy to elude these pernicious 
creatures but it isn't. You know 
the excuses: ‘I wasdistracted by 
that butterfly burping. I'll just 
have one more go and show the 
little blighters'. And so on into 
the night. 

Verdict 

An enjoyable, if graphically 
uninspired, game. A little over- 
priced for what it offers but 
nonetheless quite a compelling 
piece of frivolity that could give 
hours of fun. 

Bob C happen 

RATING 

Lasting appeal AAA 

Playability AAA 

Use of machine AAA 

Overall value AAA 




COMMODORE 64 

Out to 
munch 

Commodore 64 Mm £X 
PubfcharSupcrsoft . Winchester 
House . Canning Road . 

Wcaldstone . Harrow H A3 7SJ 
F armat Cassette Language Machine 
code Other varateasNont Outlet Mail 
>rdcr and most dealers 

Take one basic Pacman theme, 
set it in a three dimensional 
maze, increase the height and 
width of the maze walls to 
life-like proportions, then, for 
that extra something, make the 
monsters as big as houses. This 
should give you some impress- 
ion of 3-D Glooper. 

Objectives 

Very simple. All you have to do 
is race round a maze in search of 
large blue floor-tiles. Passing 
over a tile causes it to disappear 
and you score ten points. There 
are over 300 tiles so you have 
quite a bit of maze to ramble 
through. A few red tiles are 
scattered about. Crossing one 
of these enables you. tempor- 
arily. to be a monster muncher 
instead of a monster’s lunch. 
The monsters are huge yeti-like 
creatures, brown, furry and 
yellow eyed. They turn orange 
when you pass an elusive red 
tile. Unlike other games, no 
warning is given when they are 
about to turn back to their 
normal, carnivorous selves. 

If you succeed in erasing all 
the blue tiles, you move on to a 
higher level where the gloopers 
roam in higher number. 


In play 

A plain and innocuous ‘prepare 
to meet the Gloopers' message 
is all you get by way of an 
introduction. You are then 
shown the entrance to the brick 
built maze. The maze itself is 
graphically impressive — large 
size walls with plenty of twists 
andturns. Moving your joystick 
(the keyboard can be used 
instead) causes you to rush 
along at high speed, the vista 
changing around you. 

There is no overview of the 
maze and. unless you have a 
superhuman sense of direction . 
there’s no way you’re going to 
avoid getting lost . The only help 
you're given is a small display at 
the top of the screen. This 
appears from time to time and 
shows the part of the maze 
immediately around you. 

Other information given is a 
counter which tells you how 
many blue tiles remain, the high 
score and current score. You 
receive a one thousand point 
bonus for every glooper mun- 
ched. Sound effects are fairly 
minimal: a whoosh as you pass 
over a tile, the menacing sound 
of munching and a crash when 
you hit a glooper. 

Rounding a corner and com- 
ing face to face with one of these 
hairy horrors is the most im- 
pressive part of the game. 

Verdict 

A good game with some of the 
biggest monsters you’re likely 

to see Bob Chappell 

RATING 
Lasting appeal 

Playability A AAA 

Use of machine AAA 

Overallvalue AAAA 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 2J». 1983 







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GAMEPLAY 


Bob Chappell finds a few prize blooms in the latest flowering of Oric games. 




THE ULTRA 


snip in space, mn n soon 
becomes apparent that there is 
not a lot to retain one's interest . 
You travel the galaxy (pressing 
the cursor control keys) sear- 
ching for and destroying all 
alien ships. Unlike the tradi- 
tional Star Trek games, you 
have no control over shields, 
warp, speed, crew. etc. All you 
can do is press keys to move 
your ship and fire at any passing 
enemy. 

A fairly simple game which 
has entertainment value but 
docs not give you enough 
variety or depth. 


LIGHT CYCLE 


ORIC MUNCH 




A competent 
_ version of the 
pill gobbling. 


' ghost chasing, 
maze running favourite. The 
ghosts seem to have left their 
brains at home since they rush 
about quite aimlessly, often 
getting trapped in corners. The 
first nine levels are selectable 
(different layouts, speeds and 
colours). Thereafter, you 
ascend only by proving your 
merit. 

An enjoyable version of a 
classic. 


Tron surfaces 
again. You con- 
trol a bike 
which blazes a 
| trail across the 
screen. The aim is to force the 
opposition's bike tocrash. Nine 
speed levels are available and 
you can give your bike some 
extra zip by pressingthe booster 
key. Colliding with a wall, one 
of the Rom towers or a trail 
results in the loss of one of your 
five lives. You can play against 
the computer or have a two 
player game. The first to lose all 
five lives is kaput. The longer 
you take to dispatch the enemy . 
the more points you get. 

Good value. 

TIm Ultra, Hopeer and L«M Cycte 

(£6.95) — PSS. 452 Stoncy Stanton 
Road, Coventry CV6 50G 
Wc Tiak (£9 95) — Salamander 
Software 0273 771942 
Oric Munch I is 35) — Tansoft. 3 
Club Mews, Market Square. Ely. 
CambsC'B7 4NW 
SUHfchUr (£6 95) - Durcll Soft- 
ware. Castle Lodge. Castle Green. 
Taunton TA1 4AB 
The above are all available by Mail 
Order or from Juniper Computing. 
Wilts . (06662-2689) and other 
dealers. 


Oric game-frame 


Hidden inside the Oric isa game 
machine struggling to get out. 
The problem for software wri- 
ters is that Oric has been 
reluctant to reveal just how the 
insides work. The result is a 
challenge to the games writers 
to find out all the tricks and 
special effects for themselves. 
Here is how some of the latest 
releases shape up. 


Starting with 
what is certain 
to become a 
best seller for 
the Oric. The 
Ultra is a graphically superb 
game that has you zapping 16 
different varieties of aliens, 
each with its own formation and 
attacking pattern. 

The game opens with your 
ship executing an impressive 
jump through hyper space to 
where the action is. First up are 
the green snappers — easy 
targets against the starry back- 
drop. Next come the blue 
meanies. a swirling bunch of 
wriggling space invaders. To 
follow, a crescent of rather 
beautiful revolving hexagonal 
barrels who arc around the 
screen, raining bombs all the 
while. It's a shame to pot these 
lovely creatures. Ah. well, on 
you go to a host of pulsating 
yellow ellipses that would have 
had Wordsworth forgetting ab- 
out his daffodils. There are a 
further 12 screens of differently 
hued and fashioned aliens to 
conquer. 

You have five lives and 
limitless missiles. Firing hapha- 
zardly causes your ship to 
overheat and the missile laun- 
cher to quit temporarily until 
the ship cools down. 

Magnificent graphics and 
great fun — a must for Oric 
owners. It shows that the Oric is 
capable of great things when 
fed with a quality program. 


HOPPER 


As it’s likely 
thatonlyjudges 
and hermits 

have never 
heard of Frog- 
ger. I'll be extra brief. This is a 
very good version with the 


screen teeming with move- 
ment. Attractive graphics and 
well worth buying, especially if 
you've always wanted a F rogger 
of your own. 


ORIC TREK 


i This is the Oric 
| version of Sala- 
mander's excel- 
' lent real-time 
1 Star Trek prog- 
ram. Long and short range 
scanners, photon torpedos, 
hyperprobes. shield control, 
warp drive, black holes, mes- 
sages from Scotty. Uhura. elal, 
and oodles of Klingons. What 
more could a Trekkie ask for? 
The game comes complete with 
a clear 12 page manual with a 
handy command summary. Ev- 
ery micro games player must 
have at least one version of Star 
Trek for the collection , and this 
is one of the best. 


STARFIGHTER 


This game suf- 
fers in contrast 
with the pre- 
vious one. It 
starts with an 
impressive console window 
through which you can see your 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 





GAMEPLAY 


ALLEY ANGST 


BBC B 

Mirage 

massacre 

Name 3D Bomb Alley Systeai BBC 
B Peblt t hf Software Invauon, SO 
Elborough Street. Southfield*. 
London SWIK 5DN Price 16 .95 
Format Cassette (MM s Mad order 

The Falklands war inspired a 
series of arcade-type games for 
leading micros. 3D Bomb Alley 
from the appropriately named 
Software Invasion is for BBC 
owners who want a share of the 
action. And action is what you 
will get if you can last the 
course. 

Objective 

You are looking down a bay (or 
is it a bluff cove?) where riding 
at anchor are three ships. You 
are in the defensive front line, 
commanding an anti-aircraft 
battery. You scan the sky 
looking out for enemy aircraft, 
ready to fire your shells to 
destroy them. 

You can control the firing 
with a cross which is the centre 
of the gun fire. 

The sky is clear. A tiny black 
dot appears and begins to grow 
in size becoming not a dot but a 
small plane armed with two 
bombs. The bombs fall, there is 
a great explosion and one of the 
ships is gone. 

Your orders are to shoot 
down the planes before they can 
release their deadly payload. 
At first it is easy as the planes 
come one at a time. But after 
you shoot down the first ten 


planes they start coming in twos 
and later in threes and so the 
shooting gets tougher. 

In play 

On hitting the growing dot. 
there is a ‘Defender’ type 
explosion as bits of shrapnel 
shower over the landscape. 
Another nine planes follow one 
by one and the same thing 
happens. 

This is easy. 

As you move up the next level 
you not only get an extra plane 
but you also get an extra ship to 
defend as well. As more and 
more planes come one of the 
dots becomes not a dot but a 
Mirage. It breaks through your 
defensive screen. There is a 
blinding flash and one of your 
ships has gone. 

The war gets worse as ship 
after ship goes under. Even- 
tually you are left with just one 
ship and the last Mirage gets 
through dropping the black 
bomb as it goes. 

The game is over with a 
terrific explosion. 

Verdict 

Like the other games from 
Software Invasion, this one 
makes use of the new found 
BBC colours like dark and light 
shades. With good moving 
graphics and sound effects the 
game becomes addictive. 
You’ll get your money’s worth 
out of this program . 

Kevin Williams 

RATING 
Lasting appeal 

Ptayabilrty «««« 

Use of machine 
Overall value 




SPECTRUM 

Swinging 

crawly 

Nam Splat Spta Spectrum (48K) 
Prtoe £5 50 PuMMmt Incentive Soft 
ware Ltd. 54 London Street. Read- 
ing RGI 4SQ Fermat Cassette 
L a nguag e Machine code Other ver- 
Nen None Outlet Spectrum dealers 

The quality of artwork on 
software advertisements and 
cassette inserts has increased 
enormously of late. Not surpri- 
singly, stiff competition has 
forced software houses to en- 
sure that their products catch 
your eye. However, an impress- 
ive cover is no infallible guide to 
the program’s quality. It was 
with some trepidation, there- 
fore. that I loaded a new game. 
Splat!, which came enclosed in 
a glittering foil-fronted cover. 
My anxiety was unfounded. 

Objectives 

Contolling Zippy .anew species 
of hero resembling a four- 
legged spider, you must man- 
oeuvre him/her/it through a 
seven level maze to reach the 
exit. On the way. you must eat 
grass and plums, and avoid 
spikes and water. The whole 
Hampton Court complex slides 
about unpredictably. Bounded 
on all sides by a fixed wall, it 
swings up, down, left and right, 
for varying durations. You 
must avoid blundering into the 
outer wall, or. what is more of a 
problem, getting trapped 
against it like a fly swatted on a 
window-pane. Points are 
gained by gulping the grass and 
plums, and for reaching a new 
level. 


In play 

Full on-screen instructions are 
supplied . The optionsallow you 
to use the keyboard, or a 
Kempston or AGF joystick. 

Ready for the off. Zippy is 
placed in the central portion of 
the chunky maze which im- 
mediately starts moving, in a 
tick-tock fashion, to one of the 
four cardinal compass points. It 
continues on the same course 
for several seconds before de- 
ciding to head off elsewhere. In 
the meantime, you have to 
manipulate Zippy so that he 
doesn’t get carried off and 
splatted against a wall. 

As well as preventing Zippy 
from getting turned into straw- 
berry jam. you must also try to 
gobble up as many clumps of 
grass as possible . Some of which 
are tucked down dead-end 
alleys. 

Level two gives you some 
plums as an extra enticement 
but the re are also rivers to cross . 
Later, red spikes need avoid- 
ing. The menu tells you that the 
exit is on level seven and adds. 
‘No chance!' — I can well 
believe it. 

As an added incentive, ISL is 
offering a £500 prize for the 
highest score reached by 14 
January 1984. Every time you 
score over 500 points, a unique 
code is presented on the screen 
and entrants must submit the 
score and code. 

Verdict 

An original and entertaining 
game which hooks you after just 
a few minutes' plav. 

Bob r h «p p eN 

RATING 
Lasting appeal 
Playablility 

Use of machine ««««« 
Overall value 


50 


PCN SEPTEMBER ^ SEPTEMBER 28. 1963 





>05*ern Ltd. P.O. Box 2, Andoversfo 
Cheltenham, Glos GL54 5SW. 

Tel: Northleach (04516) 666 
Telex 43269 Prestel 37745 

ThisgSm^nguires a colour television set 

and the $pec«aT3f> ala; ses provided with eoch game 


SPECTRUM 
VIC 20 

COMMODORE 
BBC 'S’ 





mmm 


MmvA'i 


BLUES AND REDS 


Gold 

turkey 

Name California ( >old Rush 
Application Arcade Game SyOtem 
CBM64+ joystick Mee£7 95 
Publisher A nik MicrosystemsOWM 
41 1012 Other versions Spectrum. 
Dragon (MMs Mail order 

Prospector Jake has found 
24 areas rich in gold mines, and 
to claim these he must surround 
them with a fence. The local 
Indian tribe is very upset by this 
intruder and attempts to tear 
down all Jake's fences. 

Objectives 

Once Jake has completely sur- 
rounded his mine with a fence, 
it is his to keep. The Indians are 
busy ripping down the fences. If 
he collides with them he may 
lose one of his five lives. The 
only tool Jake has is a reuseable 
stick of dynamite which . when it 
explodes, leaves a pile of rubble 
blocking the path. One Indian 
patrols the perimeter to rip 
down perimeter fences and 
clear the rubble. Jake must 
drop the bomb while on the 
move as contact with the cheap- 
grade nitro is fatal for him (not 
so for the Indians). 

In play 

The instructions need a third 
reading to make total sense. 
Movement around the maze 
needs very accurate manipula- 
tions of the joystick. There are 
24 levels of play which can be 
directly entered at the start of 
the game. 


Levels 13-24 arc identical to 
levels 1-12 but the Indians now 
have bows and arrows. I or 2 
players can play. 

The graphics used arc quite 
simple. The lettering and 
blocky scenery imply standard 
graphics but there are six Indian 
sprites, an arrow sprite, and 
Jake and bomb sprites. The 
fence consists of a rather unim- 
aginative row of •+' signs. 
User-defined graphics such as a 
bag of gold and the pile of 
rubble do inject a little into the 
presentation. 

With the flavour of the Gold 
Rush of '86 and sounds of the 
war dance, the effects are a real 
audiovisual minestrone. More 
thought should have gone into 
the sound and graphics. A 
cactus here, a little fiddle music 
there would have helped. 

Onto idiot-proofing. The 
STOP key is disabled, but the 
RUN and RESTORE sequ- 
ence causes my 64 to refuse to 
obey Basic, and one simple 
poke can fix that. After the 
crash I had to power down and 
wait another three minutes to 
load the game. 

Verdict 

A very enjoyable game with a 
few pitfalls. It is original and 
reasonable value for money. It 
beats hell out of some rubbish 
I’ve seen for the '64. There's no 
mindless mayhem and anybody 
can play it. With a few changes it 
could become another Pacman . 

Sandro de Rosa 


RATING 
Lasting appeal 
Playability 
Use of machine 
Overall value 




Benn 

party? 


Nam General Elect ion System 
Spectrum 48K. Price £5 95 
PuMisher Hug-Byte. Mulberry 
House. Canning Place. Liverpool 
051-709 7071 Format Cassette 
Language Basic Other versions None 
Outlets High street dealers 

The thought of a computer- 
styled board game based round 
a General Election made me 
feel that in my case it would 
prove more of a bored game, 
but once you’ve got the hang of 
the inevitably complicated 
rules there's actually plenty to 
be enjoyed. 

Objectives 

The aim of each of the 2-4 
players is to do a Maggie and 
ruin the country . . . sorry, run 
the country by winning a major- 
ity of the 100 seats on offer. 

The rules are rather daunt- 
ing. taking up nearly five sides 
of the cassette insert, and as 
usual when faced with densely 
packed instructions I plunged 
into the game and picked up 
things as I went. It doesn't 
always work, but it docs here. 

In play 

You first choose the number of 
players, and then select the 
party each is to represent from 
Conservative. Labour. Liberal 
and SDP. I'm afraid potential 
Raving Loonic candidates will 
have to do a substantial re-write 
to the program if they want to 
play. 

The board itself consists of 24 
outer squares round which the 


players move in turn after the 
Spectrum throws the dice, and 
100 inner squares representing 
20 seats in each of five regions: 
Scotland. North East. North 
West. South East and South 
West. Those 20 seats range 
from the very safe to the very 
marginal. 

In moving round the board 
you might land on one of a 
variety of squares. An arrow 
indicates a particular region, 
and landing there effectively 
gives you two seats in that 
region, chosen at random. An 
‘S’ gives you a 1% regional 
swing, with a 75% chance of 
increasing the swing each time 
you land on that square. A *P’ 
asks you to choose your most 
important policy out of five on 
offer, the computer having 
already weighted these. 

Although written in Basic, 
there is a liberal (if you’ll 
pardon the expression) use of 
PEEKs and POKEs to speed 
up things, and the responses are 
generally quick enough to avoid 
wandering minds. As with any 
good game, the elements of 
chance and skill are combined 
well, and for once the minimal 
use of sound is welcome, as 
anyone who’s heard a party 
political broadcast will agree. 

Verdict 

If you like politics then you’ll 
probably enjoy this, but if. like 
me. the announcement of a 
General Election has you look- 
ing up the first available holiday 
departures then let me assure 
you that this game is much more 
enjoyable . Mike Garrard 

RATING 
Lasting appeal 
Playability 
Use of machine 
Overall value 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 






SOFTWARE FOR YOUR MICRO 

British Broadcasting Corporation 



These new software pocks ore designed to exploit to 
the full the sophisticated design and great versatility 
of the British Broadcasting Corporation 
Microcomputer. 

Taxcalc 

This Which? income tax calculator enables you to 
check your tax bill for 1982-83. £1725 

White Knight: Mark Eleven 

This refined and enhanced version of White Knight 
is one of the best microcomputer chess games in the 
world. £11.50 

Canyon 

A thrilling ond original graphics gome demanding 
split -second reflexes, rapid decision-making and 
skilful flying' and 'shooting'. £10.00 
Dr Who: The First Adventure 
Wriggling Worms, Tenor doctyh and Space Demons 
are omong the hazards focing Dr Who in this 
exciting graphics gome. £10.00 

VUType 

An ingenious and versatile program that teoches 
you to touch-type without the need for a book. 
£16.10 

Record Keeper 

A very useful program enabling householders ond 
small businessmen to keep track of their lists. 

£13.80 

Toolbox 

This invaluable set of programming oids includes a 
REM stripper, cruncher, RAM test ond program 
re -sequencer. £21.00 

Beyond Basic 

A book and software pock explaining ond 
demonstrating assembly language programming 
using the British Broadcasting Corporation Micro's 
built-in BASIC assembler. 

About £7.50 (Book) £10.00 (Software Pock) 

The Friendly Computer Book 

This no-nonsense guide to computing ond BASIC will 

help beginners get to grips with the British 

Broodcasting Corporation Microcomputer, the 

Sinclair Spectrum or the Research Machines 380 Z. 

£4.50 

The original software range from the British 
Broadcosting Corporation is still available: 

Early Learning. Fun Games. Games of Strategy. 
Home Finance. Painting. Drawing. Music. 

The Computer Programme Programs Vol. 1 
The Computer Programme Programs Vol. 2 

Each £10.00 

ON SALE NOW AT 
SELECTED BOOKSELLERS AND 
MICROCOMPUTER SHOPS 


See us at Stand 138 Hal A Lower. 

Personal Computer World Show, Barbicon Centre, 
City of London (28 September - 2 October) 



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mechanism allowing us to add a new dimension to computer games. Every July and January we will be 
publishing a ranking list of the top 1000 scorers in each game with the overall top 100 grand masters' each 
receiving certificates of merit bearing their position. 

September is the last month to qualify for the Black Hole championship. However, from October the 
sender of the highest valid score each month will win software of their own choice to the value of £50. 



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Trade Enquiries welcome telephone 0242 


READOUT 


Which book would your micro want you to buy? PCISTs review page helps you choose . 



‘Pascal Programs for Games 6 
Graphics’ by Tom Swan, published 
by Hayden (paperback, 214 
pages). 

After all the criticisms of Pascal 
on the grounds that it's autocra- 
tic. inflexible, and more than a 
little chaotic (which, one may 
add. it's proponents have en- 
dured with ill grace), it's a real 
pleasure to find Pascal Pro- 
grams for Games A Graphics. 
by Tom Swan. 

It's a book which proves that 
Pascal as a language is no less 
capable than any other, and 
that its limitations are often 
brain-related. 

The subject is, as the title 
indicates, concerned largely 
with the less weighty side of 
using Pascal, but this doesn't 
mean that the programs are 
trivial. Some of the games arc 
almost of arcade quality, and in 
addition to a special Library 
Unit, there are four that arc 
actually useful. 

These four, a character edi- 
tor, a picture-editor, a touch-up 
utility and a picture-printer, 
comprise the main core of a 
practical computer-aided de- 
sign system which, with small 
effort . could be expanded into a 
professional product. 

A pleasure to read, and a 
useful addition to the library of 
many Pascal-dabblers. RK 

TheAtan Book of Games’ by Mike 
James, S M Gee and Kay Ewbank, 
published by Granada at £5.95 
(paperback, 156 pages). 

This book joins a range from 
Granada covering micros which 
include the Oric, Newbrain. 
Lynx and Commodore 64. 

It features games for both the 
400 and 800, explaining that the 
drives of the I6K Atari 400 will 
have to be disconnected to get 
sufficient memory to run the 
four biggest programs in the 
book. 

These are Capture the 


Quark. Laser Attack, Treasure 
Island and Smalltalker. But 
there are another 1 7 programs 
in the book which, if you've got 
the patience to type them in. 
should help you understand. 



The authors provide an ex- 
cellent introduction which gives 
all the help you'll need. The 
games chapters offer typing 
tips, subroutine structures, de- 
tails of special programming 
techniques and suggestions for 
further improvements. 

The program listings vary in 
length between two and five 
pages, instructions are clear 
and comments concise, helping 
you to use the listings to the full . 

WP 

The Database Primer’ by Rom 
Deakin, published by Century at 
£6.95 (paperback, 154 pages). 

The Database Primer is de- 
signed to help you get the most 
out of your machine when 
dealing with data storage and 
manipulation. Its 14 chapters 
begin with a rundown of the 
majority of keywords such as 
file , Database and sea rch . 

The book then explains what 



a database consists of and its 
advantages. Simple but re- 
levant examples are given to 
illustrate the points made. 

Chapters four, five and six 
deal with more complicated 
examples of databases, with 
advice on how to enter and 
retrieve data to the base. 

The other chapters deal with 
performing calculations on the 
data, sorting, selecting, and 
mathematical functions. The 
book also deals with using more 
than one file, menus and com- 
mand files. 

It is easy to read, does not go 
over the top on the information 
provided nor is it boring. The 
chapters are presented well and 
the layout good. TJ 


Dynamic 
Games for the 

ZX Spectrum 




‘Dynamic Games for the ZX 
Spectrum’ by Tim Hartnell, 
published by John Wiley 6 Sons at 
£5.95 (paperback, 186 pages). 

Many books bombard you with 
listing upon listing for your 
favourite computer. but 
although they may be a cheap 
source of games — if you can 
stand the finger-bashing — they 
usually offer little of educa- 
tional value. 

Dynamic Games for the Spec- 
trum takes a similar approach 
but has the bonus that each 
game is given an introduction 
which takes you through the 
programs line by line. The 
tricks used are explained and 
various modifications are sug- 
gested. 

The programs are mainly for 
games which fall into four 
categories: arcade, board, 
adventure and simulation. The 
usual games such as Tic Tac 
Toe, Chess and Checkers can 
be found but there arc some 
originals. 

This book is fairly well writ- 
ten and the text is easy to read. 


Some programs also include a 
diagram of a screen shot which 
gives an idea of what the game 
should look like before you 
begin to key it in. 

The listings vary in read- 
ability. however, and some 
are only just legible. 

The final chapter in the book 
contains hints and tips about 
improving your programs, and 
there is the usual machine code 
renumber given in the appen- 
dix. TJ 



‘Functional Forth for the BSC 
Computer' by Boris Allan, 
published by Sunshine at £5.95 
(paperback, 116 pages). 

Functional Forth for the BBC 
Computer is not a teach-your- 
self Forth book Instead it 
analyses how the language 
works and functions. Forth is a 
compiled language like Pascal, 
whick means its speed of execu- 
tion should be faster than the 
speed of a language such as 
Basic. 

The ten chapters explain how 
the system works and include 
topics such as Forth words and 
pointers, the all important 
stack, vectors, control struc- 
tures. logical functions, sound 
effects, graphics and the oper- 
ating system. 

They contain many examples 
and definitions of terms. Also 
provided are charts and dia- 
grams. 

The author obviously knows 
his subject but the style of 
presentation is not as good as it 
could have been for a text of this 
nature. 

The author claims that the 
reader should understand his 
computer through the use of 
Forth. But I reckon that any 
reader who understands this 
book without too much effort 
will be doing fine. TJ 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28. 1W3 



HE WHO DARES -WINS. 


DARE YOU TAKE 
UP THE BRAD 
CHALLENGE? 



Brad Stevens. The 
new super hero from 
Express Software. 

HisS.A.S. back- 
ground and a peculiar 

turn of fate prepared , 

him well for his fantastic adventures to come. V '»/£ 
A real hard man, a space cowboy, a f 
soldier of fortune, whose daring knows no 
bounds. Are you good enough to take up the v/ 

Brad challenge? 

Discover the Brad fantasy on his first assignment 
“Brad Blasts the Galactic Barbarians". One of a new 
range of titles from Express at only £5.95 each. 

See them at your local dealer or clip the coupon and 
we’ll rush them to you. 

£1000 mm of prizes tobewon 

IN OUR FREE TO ENTER COMPETITION. > 

All you do is write a program in BASIC to print out on the screen, the prime / 
numbers below 200. The program cannot use READiDATA statements, or J , 
INPUT to achieve the results. The finished program should be no more than W ' 
20 lines long (maximum). Include with your entry a tie breaker Complete J 
the sentence - 1 bought the One because in no more than 12 words // 

Send your entry (don't forget to include your name and address) / « 
to Express Software at the address be tow. M" V 

Every correct answer will receive a prize, but the winner 
will receive a portable colour T.V. and the runners-up / ^ //MM 

Sharp scientific calculators (ideal for assisting with f ' ft IjB 

programming), interfaces and joysticks. / " 

The closing date for entnes is 3 1st December M 
1983, and the winner will be the writer of the correct # N r ‘ 

answer and. in the opinion of the fudges, most JL MT/7// / III 

successfully completes the tie-breaker jr '“U IIJlJjl"b 


wmmm'LLkl 




('/ BRAD BLASTS \ Nil. 

,1/ JF ilfllr THE GALACTIC \ A\\v 

,| j/JT-lIUr BARBARIANS The \ 

Iirilir f'rstmanexc.t.ngser.es, \ 

' featuring a unique comic strip V 

jMj I [W starring Brad Stevens - super hero^L 
SPACE QUEST Agameofsk.il 
.^jjjyand calls for fast reactions. Move quickly 
to save the earth from alien attack 
BAND,T The traditional gamblers "hook-up". 
lifW Spinning wheels nudge and gamble. Fun for the family. 
MONTE CARLO RALLY The educational game 
locate and travel to the capitals of Europe against the clock. 
BREAKOUT -3gamepack Breakout. Surrounded and Missile. 



Express Software 

73 Watery Lane, 
Birmingham B9 4HN. 
Telephone: 021-771 4711 



J SOFTWARE 0 RD E R F° RM ^ 

j Express Software. 73 Watery Lane, Birmingham B9 4HN 
I Name Please supply the following: Qty 

I Address Brad Blasts the 

Galactic Barbarians 
Space Quest 
Bandit 

Monte Carlo Rally 

I Barclaycard No. Breakout 

^^veques made payable to Express Software Ltd Total amount £ 



PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 





FOR THE BBC MICRO 


SOFTWARE 

TINY PASCAL - Pascal-T is a 16k Eprom program capable of 
compiling Source Pascal into a compact and very fast threaded- 
interpretive-code Full editor and disc-support are included and the 
program is supplied together with comprehensive documentation 
PRICE £59.00 + V.A.T. 

X CAL — An expert Computer Aided Learning package in 16k 
Eprom and support disc No programming skill required to 
construct learning sessions as the program is screen driven 
Facilities include Text pages. Graphics and Histograms 

PRICE £65.00+ V.A.T. 

FORTH — FIG-FORTH in 8k Eprom together with manual 

PRICE £34.72 + V.A.T. 
LOGO-FORTH — A 16k Eprom program introducing this very 
powerful but extremely friendly Turtle-Graphics language Users 
also have full access to the Fig-Forth support nucleus. Full 
documentation is included PRICE £59.00 + V.A.T. 

I Special discounts available tor educational establishments tor all 
the above software) 

HARDWARE 

Always in stock Printers. Disc Drives IC’s etc 

FOR THE EPSON HX20 

SOFTWARE — FORTH ROM including full documentation £34.72 
HARDWARE — Expansion Unit, Paper. Microcassettes etc 

Please phone for quotes 

Retail Mail Orders Dealer enquiries to: 

HCCS ASSOCIATES 
533 Durham Road, Low Fell, Gateshead. 

Tyne & Wear NE9 5EY. Tel. (0632) 821924 
Retail sales also at: 

HCCS MICROCOMPUTERS 

122 Darwen Street, Blackburn, Lancs. Tel. (0254) 672214 

PCN«* 


— 

Make the most of your Micro... 
with Pitman Programming 
Pocket Guides 

Specifically designed for quick and easy access - 
these jargon-free guides will help you get the most 
from your computer. 

New in October 

Pocket Guide to Programming for the BBC Micro 

Neil A Pal Cryer/0 273 01979 I 

Pocket Guide to the Assembly Language for the 6502 

Bob Bright /0 273 01990 2 

Pocket Guide to FORTRAN 77 

Clive Page/0 273 01973 2 

Also available 

Pocket Guide to Programming 

John Shelley/0 273 0I70S J 

Pocket Guide to BASIC 

Roger Hum/0 273 016*5 7 

Pocket Guide to COBOL 

Ray Welland/0 273 01650 4 

Pocket Guide to FORTRAN 

Philip Ridler/0 273 016*3 0 

Pocket Guide to PASCAL 

David Wail/0 273 01649 0 

COMING SOON in January 1984, further guides on 

the Apple, the Pet, Statistical Programming and the 
Assembly Language for the 7J0. 

All titles ONLY £2.S0 EACH. 

Order NOW from your bookseller. 


Pitman Publishing, 128 Long Acre. 
London WC2E9AN 



SPLAT AN ORIGINAL 48K ZX SPECTRUM CHALLENGE BY THE AUTHOR 
OF MINED-OUT OBJECTIVES EXPLORATION. SURVIVAL AND EA 
GRASS!! 

Zippy. Plums. Rivers A massive 21 K play area. 7 levels lo explore, 
delmed controls, also Kemoston & A G F joystick compatible, £500 00 
Score Competition SPLAT evolution by Ian Andrew & Ian Morgan 
available from a* good computer shops 

i Please send me copiesof SPLAT r« £5 50 inclusive 1st Class Post ; 

! I enclose cheque PO lor£ or please debit my Access Card No ! 

j Li 1 LI 1 1 1 1 1 I I I I I I 1 



V 1 

,• j*f i , Incentive Software Ltd — 54 London Street -Reeding 

(0734) 591 678 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER2H.19K3 


|| JH 






I 1 


PCN ProgramCards 

We have two new programs this week , one the code . the second is the assembly listing. Our apologies for the fact that the BBC 
from Richard Smith, of Torbay, Devon for which will help to check correct entry. utility billed in last week's issue was not 
the BBC. and one from John Edyvane, of It operates by intercepting the system included. It does, in fact, appear this week. 
Peterborough. Cambridgeshire for the command line interpreter routine. The Note also that the ZX81 Knockout Whist 
Lynx. address of the dump routine is placed into program has only four cards, not five. 

The Readage program for the Lynx is &208 and &209. Whenever *DUMP is Finally, the program used in our show 
used, as the title implies, to work out your used, the OSCLI will go to DUMPCH competition (see below) will be published 
reading age. You have to type in 300 or so which checks whether DUMP has been in ProgramCards after the show . 
letters grouped into words and sentences, entered. If not then the program jumps to If you want tosee your program in print. 
From this, taking into account various the system OSCLI routine. along with your name, why not send it in to 

things like word length and the number of Those of you with disk systems will have ProgramCards? We pay for any programs 

syllables, it works out your reading age. noticed that a ’DUMP command already that we publish according to length, 

DUMP is a utility for the BBC. It is exists. Don't fret though, they will both originality and good programming tech- 
actually a machine code program, and the work in the same system. The disk dump nique. Send them in on cassette or disk, or 
Basic program on the first card is used to do routine needs a file spec following it , which if they are short then a listing will do. All 
the assembling. The routine is used from will differentiate between the two. The programs should be accompanied by a 
Basic to dump all the variable names program needs to be stored in memory listing and a brief outline of how the 
currently in use to the screen. somewhere, and the version printed starts program works, in the form of comments. 

It dumps reals, strings, arrays and string at &D00. The disk system uses this bit of As soon as we have looked at them and/or 
arrays. The system integers A% to Z% are memory, so you have to move it. published them, they will be sent back at 

not dumped, but two or more letter If you aren't using user defined charac- our expense. 

integers are. Arrays are denoted by an ters then &CU0 is available, and if you Write to: PCN ProgramCards, Evelyn 
open bracket after the name. aren’t using the cassette or the RS432 then House, 62 Oxford Street. London W1A 

The program is presented in two formats &A00 is available. The Break key holds a 2HG. 

— the first is the program used to assemble routine to re-initialise the routine . 


Win an ELECTRON... 


Are you our Gamcplay ace? Your Gameplay skill 
could win you an Electron at this year’s PCW 
show. 

Come to the PCN stand on any of the four days 
from September 29 to October 2 and test your skill 
in our great Gameplay competition. Each day the 
highest scorer will win a star prize. And the 
Gameplayer who hits the top score of the show 
will walk away with the Electron. 

To enter the competition simply cut out the 
coupon below and give it to the adjudicator on the 
PCN stand, which is No 101 on floor A Lower at 
the Barbican Centre in London. 


Each coupon entitles you to one play, so don’t 
forget to bring it along. 


Pj 

Cutou 

f^dbri ngtoJH? 

CVVsho*. 

COMPETITION 


1 

1 

- — 

It 

1 

1 i 

|Qooaoooaaoaieifli«| 

LfiOaaODQBOOHUDj 

OOOOOOQOHNHeJ 



You’ll find more details of the PCW Show in 
next week’s issue of PCN, on sale at the Barbican 
as well as at your local newsagent. There’s a 
bonus, too. /*CAfs writers will be on hand to offer 
advice on microcomputing problems. 

See you there . . . 

...at the 
PCW show! 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28. 







HOT ^iyt 

THE MASS STORAGE PEOPLE 


| = - = SUPPORTS strtus 

Once again ICE have increased their range of subsystems to support another 
major microcomputer — the SIRIUS. 

* 5W' Winchester Subsystems 5, 10, 20, 40 megabyte. 

* Easy lb Install — Easy lb Operate. 

* CP/M86 and MSDOS fully supported. 

* Fast Thpe Streamer Back Up. 

* "Lattice” — The ICE Low Cost Networking System. 

All ICE products carry a full 12 months on site warranty 
against manufacturing defects or component failure. 

If any ICE equipment fails we guarantee an engineer will attend 
your premises within 24 hours ensuring minimum downtime. 

For further information regarding the above system or any other ICE subsystems please contact our 
Sales Department on Ashford. Middlesex (07842) 47271/47171. 

KX limited. Littleton House, Littleton Road. Ashford, Middlesex. TW15 1UO. telex: 8953042 (ICE ltd Cl 

*C« c ft j c ftn g ciafomer mauam or mtmwrt 



J 


PCNProgramCards 
Dump Card 1 of 3 


>LIST 

t OSTARTX-VDOOt OSASC I -4FFE3: OSNFWL=*<FF 
E7 

20 * < START** 2 ) - ■ DUMP " s * ( START* +7 ) - •• 

“ *CHRei3 

30F0RPASS=OT0 1 STEP 1 s P*=START*+4 1 

401 0PTPA9S 

50. INIT LDA&208: LDY4?09« STASTART*! STY 
START** 1 • LDA4PUMPCH M0D256: LDV4DUMPCH D! 
V25&: STA8>?08t STY!r?09s l.DYHO: . LP2 LDASTART 
*♦7. Vt JSROSASCT: I NY s CPV<F’<4 : PNEI.P2 j RTS 

iSO. NODUMP I DX250sl-DY251 1 -IMP (START*) 

70.DUMPCH ST X 250! STY251 s LDV45: . LP1 LD 
A<250> . YiCMPSTART**!. Y : BNENODt IMP* DEYs BNF 
LP1 

80. DUMP LDA#65iSTA470l .VAR ASl.AsTAXsL 
DA?'40O , X : STAS^l :LDA8«401 , XsSTA*.72s . VAR2 8 


BBC B 

BBC Basic Assembler 

Application: Utility 
Author: Richard Smith 

■ • M - T »A: .1 FI ISO -( 1:1 D V 0 ■ NIIMF I 
LDA ( Je7 1 > . V : RE OANO s TA X : JSROSASC It INY: BNEN 
AMFI 

90 . ANO .ISRESr APF : JSROSNEN1 : I DY4C: LDA ( 
47t> , Y» TAXs INYs LDA (8-71 ) . Ys BEONELt STX.«<7! t 
STAR72: .IMPVAR? 

lOO.NEL I.DA&TOi TAX t INX i CPX41 ?3i BEOF INI 
SHs CPXdSl • BCCQK : CPX497 : BCSOK! LDX497 : .OF 
TXAi STXR70! .IMP VAR 
110. FINISH RTS 

120. ESCAPE BIT&FF:BPLFINISH:BRK 
130 INF XT 

1 407p*= 1 7s * <P** I > «"E*cape"*0HR*0 
1SODIM S I 5: *S="KEYtOCALL , ‘*STR*INIT + " I 
M"iX*«S MOD256 iY*-S DIV256! CALI 4FFF7 
160CAI.I INIT 
>VDU 3 


Define start of code and OS 


100 


Put stnngs into memory, note 
that the space is left for a boot up 


110 


Begin a FOR NEXT loopfor 
assembling the code and set 
the program counter P% to the 
beginning of the code plus 4 1 
Start assembler and define 


120 


Initialisation routine that 
changes the pointer to intercept 
the command tine interpreter 
routine at 4208. 4209 
Jumps to normal routine if the 
stnng DUMP is not intercepted 
Check to intercept the dump 
command via OSCLI 
Actual dump routine, lookup 150 

position of vanabie and print it. 

Prepare for next variable 160 


Prepare for the next initial letter 
vanabie 

E nd machine code and return to 


130 


Check for escape key 

subroutine 

End assembler 

Put escape stnng into memory 

Define the Break key to call the 


Do initialisation 


/ 


PCNProgramCards 
Dump Card 2 of 3 


8329DU23 

XL IUSTST DU 


t 


2 0C29 OPTPASS 

3 0C29 AD 08 02 .INIT LDA&2O0 

4 0C2C AC 09 02 LDY4209 

5 0C2F 8D 00 OC STASTART*. 

6 OC32 8C 01 OC STYSTART7.*1 

7 0C35 A9 54 LDA# DUMPCH M0D256 

8 OC37 AO OC LDY4DUMPCH DIV256 

9 0C39 8D 08 02 STA&208 

10 OC3C 8C 09 02 STY4.209 

11 0C3F AO OO LDY#0 

12 0C41 B9 07 OC . LP2 LDASTARTX+7, Y 

13 0C44 20 E3 FF JSROSASC I 


14 OC47 C8 

15 0C48 CO 22 

16 0C4A DO F5 

17 0C4C 60 

18 0C4D A6 FA 

19 0C4F A4 FB 


INY 

CPY#34 

BNELP2 

RTS 

.NODUMP I 
LDY251 


at START% and START* + 1 
Put address of DUMPCH in 
4208,4209 so that all calls to 
OSCLIgo through DUMPCH 
Initialise the Y register to zero 
Load the accumulator from 
START% + 7 + Y on the zero 
page and print it on the screen 
using OSASCII 
Increment Y and execute the 



OC JMP < START*. > 

.DUMPCH STX250 

STY251 

LDY#5 

. LP1 L DA < 250) * Y 
OC CMPSTARTX+1, Y 
BNFNODUMP 
DEY 
BNELP1 

. DUMP LDA#A5 
STA*<70 
.VAR ASIA 
TAX 

04 LDA4400, X 
STA&71 

04 LDA&401 . X 
STA&72 
. VAR2 RFGNEL 
LDX&70 


Load X and Y from 250 and 251. 
these point to the command 
string in memory (see page 463 
of the user guide) 

Jump indirect to OSCLI 
routine This takes the values in 
START'S, and START'S,* 1 and 
uses them as an address to jump 
to. This is executed if the • 
command is not DUMP 


loop beginning at LP2 until 
Y = 34 ie print the 3^ 


le 34 characters 


X and Y point to the command 
(DUMP), these 


these are put into 

250-251 

Put 5 into the Y register 
Get character from command 


location plus Y. 

Compare entered command 
against DUMP 
If the characters are not the 
same then branch to NODUMP 
Check the rest of the 
characters 

Begin the dump, load A with 65 
and store it at 470. 

Gel the location of the vanabie 
from the language workspace 
and place the address in 
locations 471 andA72 
If A is zero then branch to NEL . 
Print character in 470. 




A#*a*CO 


AbrascO 


placed at your fingertips by the 

ingenuity of Abrasco's wizardry. As 

the Fly Snatcher you have to catch flies 

to live on. while being hunted by an agile 

and determined weasel that leads to a 

rapid game of survival. Double Trouble 

creates a nerve racking world where your 

wits are mercilessly pitted against VIC. with 

only speed and accuracy to save you from 

Schizophrenic Spike and the ever increasing 

obstacles to your survival. Pursue the alien, kill 

his drones, avoid rogue asteroids, you're running 

out of fuel, the relentless pace is quickening even 

more-what chance is there of survival In Alien Hunter. 

Only skill comes between your threatened city and its 
total annihilation by persistent androids and their 
battlecruiser with its awesome warhead In Android 
Attack. Meter Mania provides entertaining hectic 
harassment while you try to beat the clock and four meter 
maids, with amazing hi-res graphic tricks in this machine 
code game. A ravenous shark awaits with eagerness and 
determination the descending parachutists, while only you 
and your boat are able to thwart his menu in Catcha Troopa. 
Vixplode & Vixplode-64 is the latest cult game where the computer 
pushes your brain Into new realms of cunning and mind bending 
strategy as you attempt to gain control of the board. 


Take It easy with this marvellous electronic brain and its 
extensive foolproof programs as It copes with the numerous 
problems of a Home Manager. Abrasco's miraculous Electronic 
Spreadsheet Abracalc provides instantaneous solutions to 
a multitude of complex problems, yet Is simple to use and 
exceedingly good value. High seas adventure as Captain of 
a galleon scouring the seas for roaming pirates while 

k avoiding falling off the edge of the world In this hi-res 
graphic game Pirate. Superb graphics compliment your 
skill and Judgement as you prepare to pot the last ball 
to capture the championship in a blaze of glory, with 
Pool. Realistic simulation in Golf tests your golfing 
skills to the limits as you encounter bunkers, rough, 
trees and wind in an effort to win the round 


A TOUCH OF MAGIC 






s 

E 

There's magnetic quartz in them thar hills! Not to mention 
ferocious fauna, battling beasties and miserable mutants. 
What's more, they're out to get you. 

The stakes are high, but with 9 levels of play and up to 
7 creatures chasing you at a time, so are the risks. 

All you've got to protect you is a long handled shovel. 
Catch the beasties, whack the beasties and you'll see 
them off into a hole. Hesitate for a moment and you're 
fast running our of air. Hesitate for too long and you're dead. 

Sheer panic. It's creepy. It's crawly. 

And it's another great game from Visions. 

The ultimate name in video games. 


£5.95 


£8.95 £6.95 


PCNProgramCards 
Dump Card 3 of 3 


l 


8329DU3/3 

39 0C78 8A TXA 

40 0C79 20 E 3 FF JSROSASCI 

41 0C7C AO 02 LDY#2 

42 0C7E B1 71 .NAMEL LDA(&71),Y 

43 0C80 FO 07 BEQANO 

44 0C82 AA TAX 

45 0C83 20 E3 FF JSROSASCI 

46 0C86 C8 I NY 

47 0C87 DO F5 BNENAMEL 

48 0C89 20 B9 OC . ANO JSRESCAPE 

49 0C8C 20 E7 FF JSROSNEWL 

50 0C8F AO OO LDY#0 

51 0C91 B 1 71 LDA <&71 ) , Y 

52 0C93 AA TAX 

53 0C94 C8 I NY 

54 0C95 B1 71 LDA(«<71>,Y 

55 0C97 FO 07 BEQNEL 

56 0C99 86 71 STXS<71 

57 0C9B 85 72 STA&72 

58 OC9D 4C 74 OC JMPVAR2 


59 

OCAO 

A5 

70 

.NEL LDA&70 

60 

0CA2 

AA 


TAX 

61 

0CA3 

F 8 


INX 

62 

0CA4 

EO 

7B 

CPX6123 

63 

0CA6 

FO 

10 

BEQFINISH 

64 

OCA8 

EO 

5B 

CPX#9 1 

65 

OCAA 

90 

06 

BCCOK 

66 

OCAC 

EO 

61 

CPX#97 

67 

OCAE 

BO 

02 

BCSOK 

68 

OCBO 

A2 

61 

LDX#97 

69 

OCB2 

8A 


.OK TXA 

70 

0CB3 

86 

70 

STX&70 

71 

0CB5 

4C 

68 OC 

JMPVAR 

72 

0CB8 

60 


.FINISH RTS 

73 

0CB9 

24 

FF 

.ESCAPE BIT&FF 

74 

OCBB 

io 

FB 

BPLFINISH 

75 

OCBD 

00 


BRK 

76 





>VDU 

3 





42 Load A from the address given 49 

in 471 and 4 72 plus die 

contents of Y 50 

43 If zero then jumpto ANO. 

45-46 Print character in A onto the 51-58 

screen. 

47-48 Increment Y and continue to 59 

execute from NAMEL until Y is 60-63 


Jump to subroutine to see if 65-86 

escape key has been pressed 67-88 

Print a carriage return and line 69 

feed to the screen 70 

Put location of nexi variable in 72 

A71andA72 73 

JumptoVAR2 74-75 

if contents of &70 is 123 then 76 


If less than 97 then OK 
ff greater than 97 then OK 
Else put 97 into the X register 
Then into the accumulator 


Check escape key subroutine 
Do break if escape is pressed 


F 


PCNProgramCards 

Proclarge Card 1 of 1 


32000 DEFPROCLARGE < A*, X, Y, XS, YS) 

3201O1F A*= " "ENDPROC 

32O20LOCAL AX, XX, YX, ADX, BX, CX, DX, EX, FX 
3203OAX= 10t XX=0: YX*13r ADX-XX+256*YX 
32040MOVE X , Y 
32O50FQR BX=1 TO LEN A* 

32O60?ADX= ASC MID* (A*, BX) 

3207OCALL &FFF1 
32080FOR CX=1 708 
32O90DX-CX7ADX 
3210OFOR EX=7TOOSTEP- 1 
32I10FX«83--2*SGN(DX AND 2~EX) 

32120PL0T O, XS, 0s PLOT FX, -XS, -YS: PLOT FX 


BBC (A/B) OS 1.2 
BBC Basic 

Application: Utility to enlarge and move 
strings 

Author: Leon Goodfriend 


32130PLOT 0,0, YS 
32140NEXT 

32150PL0T O. -8*XS, -YS 
32160NEXT 

321 70PLOT 0, 8*XS, 8*YS 
32180NEXT 


,XS,0 


32 1 90ENDPROC 


32000 

32010 

32020 

32030 


Start definition of procedure 

and pass into it the X,Y 32040 

position of the text and the X.Y 

If a null string has been passed 32050 
Into the procedure via A$ the 
procedure is ended 

Declare local variables Note 32060 

that these are set to zero when 

declared, also note that they 

do not have the same values 32070 

outside the procedure, if used 

Set up variables to preset 

values A%. X% and Y% are 

used to pass values into the A. 

X and Y registers of the 
processor when a machine 
code subroutine is called X% 
and Y% are used to point to a 
location in memory that the OS 
routine uses A% passes a 
value to select the correct 


routine, X% and Y% point to 
3328 (and D00 hex) 

Move the graphics cursor to X 
Y. X and Y were passed into 
the procedure at the beamnmg 
Begin a FOR NEXT loop that 

Put the string, starting from the 
character pointed to by B%. 
into memory as &D00 
Call the OSWORD routine at 
AFFFl with A%=10and X% 
and Y% pointing to 4D00 
This reads the character 
definition of the letter code 
(ASCII) at 4D00 and returns 
the definition in memory 
locations 6D01 to 6D08 The 
character definition is returned 
as eight bytes which are used 
in the same way as the VDU23 
character defining command 


Begin a FOR NEXT loop to 
count the rows of the definition 
using C% 

Set D% equal to the contents 
of the address given by 
AD%+C% (4D00+C%) 

Set F% to the correct plot 
command. The bits that are 
picked out are used to set the 
F% to 83 or 80 to either plot a 
triangle m foreground colour or 
just move without plotting any 
colour 

Draw the block using XS to 
define the horizontal size and 
YS to define the vertical size 
Move the cursor back to the 
X.Y position Note that all plots 
are relative from X.Y 
Move the cursor to the top left 
hand comer of the next 
character 


32170 



YEP FOLKS — IT'S HERE 

CALIFORNIA 


AVAILABLE NOW 

Spectrum 48 K 
Dragon 
Com. 64 


Q& m MW M 


HOWDE DO PARDNERS 
This here’s Prospector Jake, I sure am havin’ one 
helluva time tryin’ to peg ma claim with those damned 
Injuns a hootin’ an a hollerin’ all over this territory. Ma job 
gets harder as I move from one Gold Field to another. I 
know, that is me an’ ma stubborn hornery ol’ Mule here 
know of 24 rich an’ I mean rich seams of pure Gold. All it needs to make 
this here ol’ critter happy is that you help me peg every doggone last 
one of them claims. 



Can YOU help Jake become rich, help him peg his claim, dodge the 
arrows, avoid the tomahawks, and plant the Dynamite in just the right 
place?. . .YOU CAN!!! 

YIPPEE ... Git yer Picks an’ Shovels and join the CALIFORNIA 
GOLD RUSH . . . NOW 


Amazing Arcade Action . . . Stunning Sound and Graphics 
Available NOW for Commodore 64, Spectrum 48, and Dragon 


m including P&P 


SPECIAL OFFER SPECIAL OFFER SPECIAL OFFER 


Order CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH before September IT R IT IT 
1 5th and get a 1 0-game Cassette of terrific games ... r I* ML ML 


COMING SO PH 

LEAPIN’ LANCELOT: Medieval Machine Magic to enthral you 
GALACTIC SURVIVAL PAK: Every Astro-Traveller must have this! 


We always need Dynamic Dealers 
and Imaginative Writers 


Please rush me CGR fc (m/c) 

Name 

TOTAL SUM INCLUDED £ 

Please make cheques and POs AddreSS .. 
payable to ANIK MICROSYSTEMS 

30 KINGSCROFT COURT 

BELLINGE. NORTHAMPTON 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 






ANIROG 




PCN ProgramCards 

Knockout Whist Card 3 of 4 


( J 4-sT> <a> =m * <a > rn& ct 
X TO»C (I+STi* D CCI«-OT><TO THCN LET 
125® NEXT 1 

ll?e SR T !ii l ?o T Sf N <SOTO ““ 
i"Sr> <to C then"let s rSi* <a ' ftND Cl 

i;t?> ifo'itfaw^anupr Cl 

1300 NEXT I 

1320 LET NC-C(R+STl 

133® LET G*»C*<R+5T> 

134-0 LET ci(R+3T)«” - 

135® LET C<R+ST>«100 
135® LET X =2 
13?® LET Y»P *4 -2 
130® LET U*«" 

139® GO SUE- 9000 
14.00 LET 
14.1® LET X *9 
142® LET V =2® 

14.3® GO* UB 900® 

1440 PRINT RT X , Y; O* <2) ; AT X+2,Y 
♦ 1:0* (1) 

145® G05UB 9200 

145® ir PTG»® THEN GOTO 154® 

147® GOTO 170® 

150® REM Ill 

151® PRINT RT 12.3; "YOU TO GO NE 

XT" 

1520 GOSUB 9200 
1530 GOSUB 9050 
1540 LET A*- INKEY* 

155® IP A*-*"' THEN GOTO 154® 


♦ ST THEN GOTO 1540 
1570 LET NP-URL A* 

150® ir C <NP) - 10© THEN GOTO 1540 
1590 IF PTG THEN GOTO 1640 
160® IF C* <NP> (2; »0*(2) THEN GOT 
O 104® 

1610 FOR 1-1 TO 5T 

162® IF C* (I) (2) -O* (2) THEN GOTO 
154® 

1630 NEXT I 
164® LET U*»" 

165® LET X-16 
166® LET Y=NP*4-2 
167® GOSUB 900® 

1660 LET X-9 
169® LET Y-O 
170® LET 
1710 GOSUB 9®0^i 

iI??.l’ > C*<NpT ,Jf Y -'°* <NP > <»>;<" X 

1730 LET NM-C(NP) 

1740 LET C (NP) * 10® 

1750 LET H>=Ci<NP) 

176® LET C*<Npj." 

}?S§ UMW 

1790 IF O* (2) *M*?5^THEN GOTO 16 
IgO® IF 0*<2>>T* THEN GOTO 310® 


IF G*<2> 
IF M*<2> 


1020 Computers go 1120-1300 Computer sorts through it's 

1030-1040 Wart and then remove the cards and chooses which card 

message from the screen to play 

1050 Computer chooses a card 1320-1470 Move cards around the table 

1060 If the card has been played then 1510 Pnrtt message 

play another 1520-1530 Do delay and then remove the 

1090-1110 Check through the cards for the message. 


1580-1600 Check thecard played to make 

sure it la valid 

1610-1630 Check surt 

1640-1770 Move cards around the table. 

1790-1850 See who the winner is 


THEN GOTO 32®® 


3; " I won that tr 



PRINT RT 12,3 

^ ET PTG-® 

PINT RT 12,3 


3405 IF R=R1 THEN GOTO 339® 

341® PRINT RT 10 3, "I HAUE CUT R 
" ; R , “YOU HAUE CUT R ";R1 
342® IF R ' R1 THEN LET TC»TCel 
343® IF Rlj-R THEN LET THiTHtl 

350® REM°diiiBBBHBpapB 

351® IF Trts© THEN PRINT RT 12,3; 

"I ** ; 

3520 IF TC-0 THEN PRINT RT 12, 3; 

353® pfelNT HRUE WON THE GAME" 
354® GOSUO 920® 

355® GOOUO 905® 

356® PRINT RT 11,®: "OO YOU WRNT 
ANOTMER GAME',"o£ KNOCKOUT WHIST 

357® IF INKEY*-"” THEN GOTO 357® 

Mp -- - 1 — KFy *- - then bun 

fits °g 5 U B ' jsee 

em mrn ~ m jbt !■ i 

900® FOR J-5 TO A 
9®1® PRINT RT X+U,Y,U* 

902® NEXT U * * * 

903® RETURN 

905® PRINT RT 7,0, 

906® FOR U-l TO 8 
907® PRINT Z* 

9000 NEXT U 
909® RETURN 

fl®0 IF 5U»1 THEN LET S*m"g” 

fill g 883 tRcK hi? fl:|: 

HU Iir3g5* ™ EN LtT 

220® FOR U= 1 TO 2® 

921® NEXT U 
9220 RETURN 


3510-3550 Print winner 

3560-3610 End program and NEW. 
9000-9030 Place or remove card 
subroutine. 


9050-9090 Remove message from scri 

9100-9140 Assignsurtlosuitnumber 
9200-9220 Delay subroutine. 



CLUBNET 


Clubnet keeps you in touch with micro enthusiasts throughout the 
UK. It is divided into rluhs and user groups and a list of each is 
published on alternate weeks. 

This week it is the turn of user groups, which are listed 
alphabetically by machine and special interest. 

If your association has something special on the agenda or if 

When PCN visited the Rainham Atari 
Users Group. 16-year old Jason McEwan 
was working on his design for a musical 
keyboard to go with an 800. 

Tve designed the prototype.’ he said, 

‘and I’m now designing the software. I 
hope to finish it by the end of the year.' 

For the future, organiser John Farrar 
would like to see programming meetings to 
enable the club to design its own software, 
with prices as low as £4.95. 

The Atari Users Group meets on the 
second and fourth Friday of the month. 

John Farrar bought his Atari 800 18 
months ago and expected a copy of the 
company's InputlOutput magazine to ar- 
rive. It did not. and indeed has not since, 
although John is listed in it as a group 
organiser. 

So he decided to go it alone and a year 
ago. with a borrowed HO, he phoned 10 of 
the people listed in the magazine. A 
meeting was arranged but only three 
people turned up. 


you’re starting a new one, contact us at Clubnet, Personal 
Computer News, VNU, 62 Oxford Street, I .on don WIA 2HG. 

The listings are based on that of the Association o( Computer 
Clubs. 

Our Clubnet Report this week focuses on the Rainham Atari 
Users Group. 


Atari reigns 

John then decided on a new tack — 
phoning people from registration cards 
from local dealers — and this has proved a 
considerable success, attracting 15 new 
members. 

’If the club was to grow any larger, we'd 
need bigger premises.' he says. 

Although Atari has apparently proved 
unhelpful in encouragingthe group, agreat 
deal of assistance has been obtained from 
Jim Wingfield of Your Home Entertain- 
ment Atari Centre at 212-213 Broad 
Street. Birmingham, who regularly sends 
information about new products. 

Membership of the group costs £10 for a 
family, £7.50 for an adult, £2.50 for the 
under- 18s and students and there is a 25p 
charge for each machine at the meetings, 
which goes towards electricity . 

Janice MclUfirie 


in Rainham 



Name Rainham Atari Users Group Venue 
Rainham Town Football Club, Wcnnington 
Road, Rainham. Essex Meetings Second and 
fourth Friday of the month Contact John 
Farrar. Rainham 22077. 


CLUBS 


Coventry Aeorn Atom User Group Peter 
Frost. 18 Frankwell Drive. Coventry. 0203 
613156 

Kent Medway Acorn User Group Meets at 
St John Fisher School on last Monday ot 
month at 7pm Sessions at 9pm Thursday 
at the Fox and Hound Chatham Clem 
Rutler, c/o SI Johns Fisher School, 
Ordance Street. Chatham, Kent. 0634 
4281 1 (day). 0634 373459 (evemnQS) 
Manchester Acom User Group Meets at 
AMC. Crescent Road. Crupsall Manchester 
8 on Tuesday except school holidays John 
Ashurst. 192 Vendors Close. Failsworth. 
Manchester. 061-681 4962 
Apple 

Ashtead Appier User Group Meets lust 
Monday ot every month Contact M 
Lawrence. 15 Patters Road. Ashtead 
Surrey 

British Apple Systems User Group. PO Box 
174. Watford W026NF 
British Apple Systems User Group Meets 
first Tuesday evening and third Sunday 
afternoon every month at Old School. 
Branch Road. Part Street, St Albans Subs 
C12 50+C2 50 touting Contact D Bolton. 
0727 72917 

Birmingham A Region Apple Group 
Contact Met Golder. 021 -426 2275 
Bristol Apple Users and Dabblers Meets at 
10 Waring House. Redclifle Hill. Bnstol 
BS1 6TB. once a month Ewa Dibkowski. 
co Oatalink. 10 Waring House. Redclifle 
Hdl. Bristol BS1 6TB. 0272 213427 
Buckinghamshire Apple User Group Steve 
Promt, The Granary Hill Farm Road 
Marlow Bottom. Buckinghamshire 062 84 
73074 

Chelmsford Apple Users Club Proposed 
new club Contact 0 Beckmgham. 571 
Galieywood Road. Chelmsford. M 
Chelmsford 66948 

Croydon Apple User Group Meets at Sidda 
House, 350 lower Addiscombe Road 
Croydon, on second Monday ot month 
Paul Vernon. 60 Ftawkhurst Way West 
Wickham. Kent. 01-7775478 
London Apple Music Synthesis Group Dr 


Davis Ells. 22 Lanoox Gardens. London 
SW1 

South-East London Apple User Group 
(Appletree) Contact John Gneve at 106 
Maran Way. Ervth. Kent or phone 01 -31 1 
7681 

Milton Keynes Microcomputer User Group 
Meets every Tuesday. 7 30pm Brian Pam. 
Sir Frank Markham School. Woughton 
Centra. Chaftron Way. Milton Keynes 

Atari 

Birmingham User Group Meets at the 
Malaga Gnll. Matador Public House. Bull 
Ring shopping centre. Birmingham on 
second and fourth Thursday every month at 
7 30pm Mike Aston. 42 Short Street. 
Wednesbury. West Midlands 
Canhelton Atari User Chib Paul Deegan. 
01-6425232 

South ChtshiroAtan User Group Meets at 
the Earl ot Crewe Nantwich Road. Crewe, 
on first Thursday ot each month at 7 30pm 
Contact A Davies. 48 Btagg Lane. 

Nantwich Cheshire, 0270 626969 
Esaea . Contact John Sarrar 138 Frederick 
Road. Rainham. Essex, tel (76) 22077 
Meets at Rainham Town Football Club. 

7 30pm. sacond and fourth Friday otaach 

Null Atan Users Local Group Harvey Kong 
Td. 546 Hold* mess Road, Hull HU9 3ES 
Hull 7911094 

London Silica Alan 400600 User Club 
Richard Hawes. 01 -301 tiff 
Manchester Atan Computer Enthusiasts 
Meets at The Ellesmere. Worsley Road. 
Worsiey. on the second and last Thursday 
ot every month Contact Martin Davies. 
Bolton 700757 

South Middlesex Atari Club Meets 
tortmghtty Tuesdays, at Staines Methodist 
Church Hail. Kingston Road. Staines 
Contact Brian Milligan. 50 Linkscroft 
Avenue Middetesex Tel Ashton) (69) 
45387 

Norwich Atari User Group Ken Ward. 
Norwich 661 149 

Prestee Atari Computer Enthusiasts Meets 
at KSC Chib, Merrlon House Beach Grove. 
Ashton. Preston, on third Thursday of 
month at 7 30pm Roger Taylor . 0253 
736192 

UK Atari Computer Owners Club Contact 


P0 Box 3. Raleigh. Essex 


Liverpool BBC and Atom User Group 
Meets at Ok) Span Technical College. 

Room C33 on hat Wednesday ot month at 
7 30pm and at Bktenhead Technical 
College on thwd TBOrsday o< month at , 
7 30pm Nick Kelty&SI 525 2934 T 


BBC 

Laserbug is an international user group tor 
the BBC micro Paul Barbour 10 Dawley 
Ride. Coinbrook. Slough. Berks. 02612 
30614 

Beebug. Sheridan Williams or David 
Graham at P0 Box 50. St Albans. 
Hertfordshire All 2AR 
Bournemouth BBC User Group Meets at 
Lansdowne Computer Centre. 5 
Hoidenhurst Road. Bournemouth on first 
and fourth Wednesday of month at 
7 30pm Norman Carey. 0202 749612 
Brent Barnet User Group Meets on last 
Sunday ot month Joseph Fox. 4 Harman 
Close. London NW2 2EA 
Charlton 6 Oistrict (South Manchester) 
BBC Micro User Group Contact Philip 
Harrison. 34 Holwood Drive. Manchester 
M168WS 

Chelmbug Contact Ian on Chelmsford 
69174 

Cardiff B8C Microcomputer Club Meets 
alternate Wednesdays at Applied Science 
Lecture Theatre. University CoBege. 
Newport Road. Cardiff 
Fermat 40 10 Club i BBC Disk User Group) 
Send SAE to Peter Hughes. Five Marsh 
Street. Bnstol BSf 4AA 
Liverpool B8C & Atom Group Meets on 
the first Wednesday ol every month at Ok) 
Swan Technical College. Room 033. 7 30- 
9 30pm . and on the third Thursday at 
Birkenhead Tech College. 7 30-9 30pm 
Contact Nik Kelly. 56 Queens Drive. 
Walton. Liverpool L4 6SH 
North London BBC Micro Users Group 
Meets at The Pnnce Ot Wales. 37 Fortune 
Green Road, on Tuesdays at 7pm Dr Leo 
McLaughlin. Westfield Collage. University 
of London. Kidderpore Avenue. London 
NW3 7ST, 01-4350109 


Norwich 6 District BBC Microcomputer 
User Group Meets at Norwich City CoBege 
on the first and thud Tuesday ot every 
month at 7pm Subs £3 students and 
DAPs El 50 Contact Paul Beverley 
Department ot Electronics. Norwich City 
College. Ipswich Road. Norwich NR2 2U 
Preston area BBC Micro User Group 
Meets at Boatmans Arms. Marsh Lane. 
Preston, on last Thursday ot month 
Ouncan Coulter. 8 Briar Grove. Ingot. 
Preston. Lancashire. 0772 725793 
Tyee 6 Wear BBC User Club Contact Ian 
Waugh. 13 Boardene Drive, Wardley. Tyne 
4 Wear NE 10 SAN 

Wakefield BBC Micro User Group Meets at 
Holmkeid House. Clarence Park. 

Wakefield, on first Wednesday of each 
month at 7 30pm Contact R Billon tat 
Wakefield 382274 

Wellingborough BSC Owners User Group 
Contact R Houghton, 49 Addington Road 
Irthlmgborough 

Witham (NAMEBUG) BBC Micro User 
Group Meets at comprehensive school. 
Witham on second Thursday each month at 
7 30pm Dave Watts 0245 3581 27 after 
7pm 

Basic 

Welwyn Basic User Group meets at 
Campus West library Welwyn Garden 
City. Herts, on last Friday ot each month at 
7pm Contact Doth Colthorpe. 36 Birds 
Close. Welwyn Garden City. Herts. 96 
30082 
Comal 

Londee Cornel User Group Meets at 
Polytechnic ol North London. Holloway 
second Wednesday of month, term time 
John Colhns. 7574111. 

Commodore ICPUG 

Basildon Contact Waiter Green. 151 The 
Hathertey. Basildon Essex 
Bloiham Contact John Temple 
Kirabanda. Rose Bank. Bloxham, Oxon 
Barnsley Bob Wool. 13 Ward Green 
Barnsley South Yorkshire. 0226 65064 
Blackpool. Meets at Amok) School 
Blackpool, on (turd Thursday of month 
David Jarrett 197 Victoria Road. Thornton 
CJeveleys. Blackpool FY5 3ST 


68 



CLUBNET 


■■■■■■■■I 


Birmingham Contact J A McKam. PPt Ltd. 
177 Loads Road. Birmingham, tel 021- 
S44 0202 

Bournemouth 4 Poole Contact Douglas 
Shave 97 Canlord Cliffs Road. Poole. 
Dorset BH13 7EP 

Bury St Edmuads. Contact Alan Moms. 30 
Kelso Road. Bury St Edmunds. Suffolk 
Burnley Contact John Ingham. 72 Ardwick 
Street. Burnley. Lancashire 
Canterbury SE. Meets at The Physics Lab. 
Canterbury University, on first Tuesday and 
Wednesday of month R Moseley 
Rosemount. Romney Hill. Maidstone. 0622 
37643 

Carrickfergus David Bolton 19 
Carncfcbum Road. Camcktergus. Antrim 
BT38 7ND. 09603 63788 
Chelmsford Contact A G Sumdge. 97 
Shelley Road. Chelmsford Essex 
Cheltenham Meets at the Cheltenham 
Ladies College on last Thursday of month at 
7 30pm Alison Schofield. 78 Hesters Way 
Road. Cheltenham. Gloucester. 0242 
580789 

Cfaryd. John Poole. 6 Ridgway Close. 
Connahs Quay. Clwyd CH5 4LZ 
Corby. Peter Ashby. 215 Wmcohn Way. 
Corby. Northamptonshire 
05363 4442 

Coventry Meets at Stoke Park School and 
County College at 7pm on fourth 
Wednesday o« month except July. August. 
December Will Light. 22 Ivybridge Road. 
Stvyechale. Coventry. Warvrtckshire 
Derby Meets at Derby Professional Colour 
every other Tuesday at 7pm Robert Waffs. 
03322 72569 

Derbyshire 6 District Meets every other 
Monday 7 -9pm at Davidson Richards Ltd. 

14 Dufflied Road. Derby Contact Raymond 
Davies. 105 Normanton Road. Derby DEI 
2GG 

Devon. Contact Matthew Stibbe. The Lawn. 
Lower Woodfield Road. Torquay. Devon 
Durham. North-East Pet and ICPUG Meets 
at Lawson School. Burnley at 7pm second 
and third Mondays Jim Cocallis. 20 
Worcester Road. Newton Hall Estate. 
Durham. 0385 67045 
Dyfod. Simon Kmveton. 097 086 303 
Gosport Meets at Bury House Bury Road. 
Gosport. Hants at 7pm Contact Tony Cox. 
10 Staplers Reach. R owner Gosport 
Hants 

Hatnault. Meets at Grange Remedial 
Centre. Woodman Path. Hainault Carol 
Taylor. 101 Courtlands Avenue. Cranbrook. 

Glasgow Dr Jim MacBrayne, 27 Oaidmyre 
Crescent. Newton Mearns Glasgow 041- 
639 5696 

Gloucester and Bristol Area. Meets last 
Friday of each month Contact Janet Rich, 
20 OM Court. Spring Hill. Cam. Gloucester 
Hampshire Meets at 70 Reading Road. 
Famborough on Hurd Wednesday ol 
month Ron Geere 109 York Road 
Farnborough Hants. 0252 542921 
Gosport Contact Brian Cox. Bury House. 
Bury Road. Gosport. Hants. Fairham 
280539 

Hants. Contact Tony Cooke. 7 Russell 
W ay. Petersfie td. Hampshire GU31 4L0 
Hertfordshire North. Meets at Provident 
Mutual Assurance. Purwell Lane. Hitchin, 
on last Wednesday of month B Grainger. 

73 Mmehead Way Stevenage Herts SGI 
2HS .0438 727925 

Kilmarnock Meets at Symington Pnmary 
School on first and third Thursday ol month 
at 7pm John Smith. 19Brewtands Road. 
Symington. Kilmarnock KA1 5RW. 0563 
830407 

Liverpool Meets at The Merchant Taylor 
School tor Boys. Crosby, on second 
Thursday ol month at 7pm Tony Bond. 27 
Ince Road. Liverpool L23 4UE. 051-924 
1505 

Llendyssel. Contact F Townsend. The HID. 
Rhydowen. Llandyssul. 06455 5291 
London. Alan Birks 135 Queen Alexandra 
Mansions. Judd Street. London WC1. 
01-4308025 


London North. Barry Miles. Department ol 
Business Studies. North London 
Polytechnic Hohoway Road. London N7. 
01-6072789 

Maidstone Meets on the first Wednesday 
ol every month contact Ron Moseley Lord 
Romney Hid. Weavering Maidstone. Kent. 
0622 37643 

Manchester Contact ChveEmbrey. 17 
Santon Avenue. Fallow Field. Manchester 
Mapperiey. Meets at Arnold & Carlton 
College. Digby Avenue. Mapperiey every 
Fnday Contact Mark Graves 8 Digby Hall 
Drive. Gunthorpe Road. Gedlmg. Notts 
NG4 4JT 

Merseyside Meets fortnightly Contact P 
Leather. 27 St Luke s Drive Formby. 
Merseyside tel 36 74694 
National Contact Membership Secretary. 
30 Brancoates Road Newbury Park. Ittord 
Essex 1G23 7EP 

Norfolk Proposed new dub Contact J 
Blair. 7 Beach Road. Cromer. Norfolk 
Norfolk Peter Petts BramleyHale 
Wreflon King's Lynn. Norfolk PE 33 90S. 
0366 500692 

Northampton Contact Peter Ashby. 215 
Lincoln Way Corby. Nonhants 
Northern Ireland. Meets last Wednesday of 
each month Contad David Weddell 9 
Upper Cavehdl Road. Belfast BT15 5E2. 
0232-711580 

Northumberland Graham Saunders 22 
Front Street. Guide Post. Northumberland 
Rhyl. Contact Frank Jones. 77 Nhltoank 
Road. Rhyl. Clywd. 0745 54820 
Slough Meets at Slough College on second 
Thursday of month at 7 30pm Brian 
Jones. 53 Beechwood Avenue Woodley 
Reading RG5 30F. 0734 661494 
South East Regional Group Meets at 
Charles Darwin School Jail Lane. Biggin 
Hill. Kent, on third and fourth Thursday of 
month at 7 30pm Jack Cohen. 30 
Brancaster Road Newbury Park. Ittord. 
Essex. 01-597 1229 

South Midlands Meets at 12 York Street 
Stourport -on- Severn on last Thursday of 
month M J Memman at above address 
Staffordshire 57 Clough Hah Road. 

Kid sg rove Stoke-on-Trent 

Stourport on Severn Meets last Thursday 

ol each month Contact M Memman. 12 

York Street. Stourport 

Teddington G Squibb. 108 Teddington 

Park Road. Teddington Middlesex. 01-977 

2346 

Watford Meets on second Monday of 
month Stephen Rabagtiab co Institute of 
Grocery Dist Grange Lane Lefchmore 
Heath Watford Herts. 01-779 
714f Witney Contact Ian Bfylh. 40 Wihnot 
Close. Witney 51 71 

Wolverhampton Meets monthly Contact J 
Bowman. 6 The Oval. AJbnghton 
Wolverhampton, West Midlands 

Commodore Pet 

Blackpool West Lancashire Pet Users 
Club Meets at Arnold School. Blackpool on 
the third Thursday ol month DJowett 197 
Victoria Road. East Thornton. Blackpool 
FY5 35T 

Southern Users of Pets Association 

Howard Pdgnm. 42 Compton Road. 
Brighton BN 1 5AN 

Pat User Group Crawley. Richard Dyer. 33 
Parham Road. I (field Crawley 
Pet Users Education Group Dr Chris 
Smith. Department of Physiology Queen 
Elizabeth College Camden Hdl Road 
London W6 7 AH 

UK Pet Users Chib 360 Euston Road. 
London NW13BL 

Pet Users Group. Meets at Polytechnic of 
North London. Eden Grove. Room 320 On 
alternate Tuesdays. 6pm Barry Miles 01 - 
607 2789 

Pet User Club Margaret Gullitord. 818 
Leigh Road. Slough Industrial Estate. 0753 
74111. 

Independent Pet Users Group. 57 Clough 
Hall Road. Kielsgrove. Stoke-on-Trent. 
Staffordshire 


Commodore Vic 

National Association of Vic-20 Owners 
Contact S Tomananek. 20 Milner Road. 
Sherwood. Nottingham 
Burnley John Ingham. 72 Ardwick Street. 
Burnley. Lancashire 

Clwyd Contact A Stanners. 192A Willow 
Park. Queensferry. Oeeside Clwyd. Wales. 
816603 

Londen Vic Users Group Meets on 
alternate Tuesdays at 6 30pm al 
Polytechnic of North London. Community 
Centre Robm Bradbeei 
London Contact Jim Chambers. 
Department of Psychology. University 
College London. Gower Sheet. London. 
WC1. 01-387 7050 x 413 Meets at 
University College. 26 Bedford Way. 
London WC1 . third Tuesday of each month 
at 8pm 

Norfolk J Blair. 7 Beach Road. Cromer. 
Norfolk. 0263 512849 

Compucolour 

Caversham. Compucolour Users Group 
UK Meets at Community Centre. 
Caversham Park Village twice a year Peter 
Hiner. 11 Pennycroft Harpenden 
Hertfordshire. 05827 64872 

CP M 

Irish CP to Users Group Meets monthly ui 
Dublin area Doug Notley Gardner House. 
Ballsbndge. Dublin 4. Dublin 68641 1 
London CP'M User Group (UK) Subs 
C7 50 Produces newsletter Contact David 
Powys-Lybbe. 01-247 0691 
UK CP to Users Group. Lesley Spicer. 1 1 
Sun Street. London EC2M 200. 01-247 
0691 

COSMAC 

COSMAC Users Group. James 
Cunningham. 7 Harrowden Court. 
Harrowden Road. Luton. Bedfordshire. 
0582 423934 

Decus 

Decut UK 6 Ireland. Contact Tracey 
Pardoe. DECUS. PO Box 53 Reading. 

Berks RG20TW 

Digital Equipment 

Digital Equipment Users Society The 

Secretary PO Box 53. Reading Berkshire 
0734 387725 

Dragon 

Brixham Dragon Owners Club Meets at 

Computer Systems (Torbay), Pump Street. 
Brixham. every Saturday at 2 30pm Ian 
Chipperfield. 22 Brookdale Court. Brixham, 
Devon. Brixham 59224 
Greater Manchester Contact Melvin 
Franklin. 40 Cowtees WesttiougMon. 
Bolton. Lancs 

Epson HX20 

London. Contact Terence Ronson, 25 
Sawyers Lawn. Drayton Bridge Road 
Ealing. W13. 01-998 1494 
Luton The Dragon s Den Contact 0 
Buckmgham. 83 Neville Road. Limbury. 
Luton. Beds 

Education 

Birmingham Education ZXB0. 81 User 
Group Enc Deeson. Highgate School. 
Batsalt Heath Road Highgate Birmingham 
B12 90S 

Birmingham MUSE National body lor 
co-ordinating activity In schools colleges 
Lorraine Boyce. MUSE Information Office. 
Westhlll College Weoley Park Road 
Birmingham. 021- 471 3723 
Dublin Computer Education Society ol 
Ireland OairmuKt McCarthy. 7 St Kevins 
Park Kilmacud Biackrock Co Dublin 
Middlesex. Educational Users Group 
Offshoot ol National TRS-80 Users Group 
Dave Fletcher, Head Teacher. Beaconsheld 
First and Middle School. Beaconsheld 
Road. SouthaK. Middlesex 


Worcestershire Mini and Microcomputer 
Users in Educabon National organisation 
R Trigger, 48 Chadcote Way. Catsfull, 
Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B61 OJT 


Forth 

Forth Users Group David Husband. 2 
Gorteston Road. Branksome. Poole Dorset 
BH121NW 0202 764724 
Forth Interest Group UK Meets at Room 
406 South Bank Pofytochmc London SCI 
on the first Thursday ot the month Contact 
K Goldie- Morrison Bradden Old Rectory. 
Towcester Northerns 


Forum 80 Users Group Frederick Brown. 
421 Endike Lane. Hull HU6 SAG 


FX-500P 

FX 500 P Users Association Max Francis. 
38 Grymsdyke. Great Missenden 
Buckinghamshire HP160LP 

Genealogists 

Society ol Genealogists Computer Intorost 

Group Anthony Camp. 01-373 7054 

Colour Ganlt User Group Details ot 
meetings membership from Pat Doohan. 
secretary. Nottingham (0602) 278791 

Intel MDS 

UK Intel MOS Users Group Lewis Hard. 
c/oS P ACE. Tha Old Coach House 
Court Row. Upton-on-SeVurn. Worcester 
WR8 0NS 

Ithaca Audio SI 00 
Ithaca Audio S100 Users Group. Dave 
Weaver. 41 Ooro Avenue. North 
Hykenham. Lincoln LN68LN 

Jupiter Ace 

Jupiter Ace Users Group. John Noyce 
Remsoft. 18 George Street. Brighton BN2 
1RH 

Lyw 


£9 Contact Robert Poat. 53 Kmgswood 
Avenue. Sanderstead. South Croydon CR2 
90Q 


Mattel 

Mattal Intelltvision TV 6ame Group 

Warrington 62215 alter 4pm 


Medlcel 

Durham Pnmary Health Care Group Dr 
Aiastair Malcolm British Computet 
Society Cheveley Park Medical Centre. 
Belmont Durham 0385 64282 
London Medical Micro Users Group 
Medtcom. t -2 Hanover Sheet. London W1 
Middlesex TRS-80 Medical and 
Laboratory Users Dr Robinson The 
Residency. Northwick Park Hospital. 
Harrow Middlesex 


Micronet 

Micronct Independent User Group Contact 
George Foot. Prestel Mailbox No 
892852867 


Nascom 

Berkshire Nascom Thames Valley User 
Group Meets at Frogmore Hotel . Windsor, 
on Thursday fortnightly . 8pm Mika 
Rothery. 37 Eaton Wick Road Eton Wick. 
Windsor Berkshire Windsor 56106 
Birmingham Nascom User Group Meets 
at Davenports Social Club. Granville Street. 
Birmingham on the last Thursday ot month. 
8pm Martin Sidebotham. 021-744 3093 
International Nascom Microcomputer 
Club. 80 Oakfield Comer Sycamore Road. 
Amersham, Buckinghamshire HP6 5EO 
Merseyside Nascom Uxor Group Meets at 
Mona Hotel. St James Street. Lrverpool, on 
the first Wednesday of month, 7 30pm Mr 
TSoarte. 051-526 5256 


69 



CLUBNET 


<469 


Group Anthony Hodge. 15 Si John * 
Court, Wakefield WF1 2RY 
Welwyn Contact Angela Watkiss, 4 
Nwnmgs Lane. Rabley Heath. Welwyn. 
Herts AL69T0 


Ohio 

Ohio Scientific User Group. Tom Graves. 
19a West End. Street. Somerset. 0458 
45359 


Ortc 

One Owners Group. Paul Kaufman. 3 Club 
Mews, Ely. Cambridgeshire 
Kent. Contact Roger Pyatt, 23 Arundel 
Drive. Orpington. Kent with SAE or call 66 
20281 

Stradikelvta One 1 User Group Contact 
Colin Fades on 041-776 3654. or SAE to 
him at 24 Muirside Ave. Kirkintilloch. 
Glasgow G66 3PR 

Osborne 

British Osborne Owners Group. J 

Angiesea. Flat 19. Rowan House. Mrtton 
Road. Handsworth Birmingham B20 2JR 


OSI 

OSI UK User Group. Richard Elen. 12 
Benneriey Road. London SW1 1 BOS 


Pascal 

Pascal User Group Nick Hughes. PO Box 
52. Pinner Middlesex HA5 3FE 


POP 

Buckinghamshire. POPS User Group Nigel 
Dunn. 21 Campion Road Widmer End, 

High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. 0494 
714483 

Hertfordshire PDP11 User Group Pete 
Harm. 1 19 Carpenter Way. Potters Bar, 
Hertfordshire EN6 506. 0707 52091 


Jnr. 145 Godwin Road. Hove. Brighton 
Cokhester Sinclair User Group Meets 
tortmghtty Richard Lawn. 102 Pettygate 
Road. Colchester. Essex 
Cardiff ZX Oub Meets on last Sunday of 
month. 2pm Mike Hayes 54 Oakley Place. 
Grangetown Cardiff . 0222 371732 
Doncaster 6 District Sinclair User Group 
meets at St Andrews Hall. Money Road. 
Wheatley Doncaster, every Wednesday 
except the first in each month Contact 
John Woods Doncaster 29357 
Edinburgh. 7X Meets at Claremont Hofei. 
Claremont Crescent. Edinburgh, on second 
and fourth Wednesdays every month. 

7 30pm John Palmer. 56 Meadowfieid 
Drive. Edinburgh. 031-661 3183 
Essex Contact M Burnett. 24 Inverness 
Drive. Hainault. Ilford. Essex 
Glasgow. ZX8081 User Group Ian Wan 
10 Greenwood Road. Ciarkston. Glasgow 
041-638 1241 

Liverpool. ZX Computer Club Meets at ZX 
Computer Centre. 1 7 Sweeting Street. 
Liverpool, on Wednesday. 6 30pm Keith 
Archer. 051 -260 4950 
London. National ZX User Club Tim 
Hartnell. Interface. 44-48 Earts Court. 
London W8 

London. Sinclair User Group Meets at 
Polytechnic of North London. Room 2-5 
Tower Block Monday. 6 30pm Irving 
Brand. Polytechnic of North London. 
Holloway Road. London 
Manchester Sinclair Users Oub Meets at 
Longsight Library. 519 Stockport Road. 
Longsight. Manchester, every Wednesday 
at 7 30pm CaK 061-225 6997 or 061-445 
6316 

ZX Spectrum Club 0 Beattie. 63 Kingsley 
Crescent Sawley Long Eaton. Nottingham 
NG10 30A 

Scunthorpe Grange Farm ZX Computer 


Pilot 

UK Pilot User Group Alec Wood. Wirral 
Grammar School for Boys. Cross Lane. 
Bebmgton. Wirral. Merseyside LG3 3A0 


Meets first and third Tuesday ol month 
Contact Sheila & Fred Wilkinson. 0724 
842970 

Staffordshire ZX80 National Software 


Praslel 

ACC Nettonal Praslel Committee 

Administrates Club Spot B00 (hobbyists on 
Praslel) Rupert Steele. St John's College. 
Oxford 0X1 3JP 

Research Machines 
Birmingham Research Machines 380Z 
Peter Smith. Birmingham Educational 
Computing Centre. Camp Hill Teachers 
Centre. Stratford Road. Birmingham B11 
1AR 

Leamington Spa. West Midland RML User 
Group Spencer Instone, era 59 Avenue 
Road. Leamington Spa 
Newcastle NERML 380Z User Group 
Meets monthly at Micro-Electronics 
Education Centre ol the Polytechnic Coach 
Lane Campus Mr Hatfield or Mr Reed. 
Computer Unit. Northumberland Building. 
Newcastle Polytechnic. 0632 326002 


WomDoume Staffordshire WV5 OJZ 
Suffolk ZX Amateur Radio User Group 
Paul Newsman. 3 Red House Lane. 

Leiston. Suffolk. SAE essential No 
telephone inquiries 

Surrey. Guildford ZXB041 Users Group 
Meets Fridays A Bond. 54 Firnham Road. 
Guildford. Surrey GU2 5PE 0463 62035 
Surrey. ZX80 81 User Club David Bigden 
PO Box 159. Kingston-upon-Thames. 
Surrey KT25UQ 

West Sussex Hassocks ZX Micro User 
Oub Paul King. 25 Fir Tree Way. 

Hassocks. West Sussex 

Slries 

Sirius User Group Ray D'Arey. Sirius User 
Club. The Microsystems Centre. Enterprise 
House. 7-71 Gordon Street. Luton. 0582 
412215 


Oxford. Research Machines Ltd National 
User Group Barry Mawer , 0704 24457 
West Midlands RML User Group Contact 
0926 3B751 


6BXX 

68 XX Special Intarest Group, meets third 
Tuesday ol each month Contact Jun 
Anderson. 01-4224724 


Sharp MZ80 

Aberdeen, international Sharp Users 
Group Graham Knight, co Knights 
Computers. 108 Rossemouni Place. 
Aberdeen. 0224 630526 
Essex. Sharp M280K User Group Joe 
Street. 1 6 Elmhurst Drive. Hornchurch. 
Essex RM111PE 
Leeds. Sharp PCI 211 Users Club 
Jonathan Dafceyne. 281 lidgett Lane. 
Leeds LSI 7 3AQ 

Somerset Sharp MZ80 Users Oub Tim 
Powell. Computer Centre. YeovU College. 
Yeovd. Somerset BA214AE 

Sinclair 

Aylesbury Sinclair ZX Computer Club Kan 
Knight . 0296 5181 

Brighton ZX Users Group J Iratand-Hill 


6809 User Group 
6809 User Group Produce bi-monthly 
newsletter Contact Mr Gdibons. Clarence 
Lodge. Hurdon Road. Launceston. 
Cornwall P11590B 

Software 

Laudan . Software Group Meets at 
Polytechnic ol North London. Room 2-3 
Tower block Thursday. 6pm M** Duck at 
Polytechnic ol North London. Holloway. 
London N7 

Oxford. Program ol the Month Oub Mr 
Ourram. 55 St Thomas Street. Oxford 0X1 
1JG. 0855 250333 

Sorcerer 

Liverpool European Sorcerer Club 


Monthly meetings Cohn Marie. 32 
Watchyard Avenue. Formby. near Liverpool 
L373JU. 07048 72137 
Surrey. Exidy Sorcerer User Group Andy 
Marshall 44 Arthurs Bridge Road Woking. 
Surrey GU21 4NT 

Spreadsheet 

IntematkMal Electronic Spreadsheet 
Users Group. UK Alpha House 7th Floor. 
Rowlands way Manchester M22 5RG 


Tandy Model 100 User Creep. SAE to 

Remsoft. 18 George Street. Bnghton. let 
0273 602354 

Tangerine 

Avow Tangerine Users Group Bob Green. 

1 Marlborough Drive. Work. Avon. 0934 
21315 

Bristol Tangenne Homebrew A Coales. 35 
Mogg Street St Werburghs. Bristol BS2 
9U6 

Texas Instruments 

Brighton Contact Clive & Audrey Scally. 40 
Barrhrtl. Patcham. Bnghton. Sussex 
Ireland Proposed new dub Contact Mrs 
Ann Flynn. 53 Georgian Close. North Road. 
Orogheda. Co Louth. Eire 
Laadt.Tl99. 4A User Group Meets at 30 
Gipton Wood Road. Leeds 8. Mondays 
7pm I Youlden . 0532 401408 
Manchester Tl User Group T Gnmshaw 
21 Allmgham Street. Longsight. 

Manchester 

Manchester TI9900 User Group Chris 
Cadogan. Department of Computer 
Science. University of Manchester Ml 3 

Nationwide Tl Users Group Contact TI98 
•4A Exchange. Independent Tl Users. 40 
Barrfull. Patcham. Bnghton BN1 8UF 


Triton Usar Grasp Nigel Stride. Transam 
Ltd. 12 Chapel Street. London NW1 . 
01-4028137 

TRS-80 

Birmingham National TRS-80 User Group 
Meets ai Adam & Eve Pub. 1st Floor 
Bradford Street. Birmingham on last Friday 
of month Michael Gibbons. 1 New Street. 
Castle Bromwich. Birmingham B38 9AP. 
021-747 2260 

Chalmstord IRS-80 User Group Michael 
Dean. 22 Roughtons. Gafleywood. 
Chelmsford, Essex 

Durham North East TRS-80 User Group 
Meets at Information Technology Centre. 
Gateshead on the third Wednesday of 
month. 7pm J Dunn. 8 Ettnch Terrace. 
North Gateshead County Durham 
Edinburgh Scottish TRS-80 and Genie 
User Group Meets at Mansion House 
Hotel. Milton Road, second Thursdays of 
month Dick Mack* 72 Momingsade 
Drive. Edinburgh EH9 1 DX. 031 -447 6651 
Herts. Contact Reg Smith. 24 Sempifi 
Road Kernel Hempstead. Herts. 0442 
60085 

Hull t District TRS-BOBeeb Users Group 
Meets second Tuesday of month and 
Thursday 16 days later at Psychology Dpi. 
Hull University Contact J Lawrence. 2a 
Hall Road Hull HU68SA 
Isle el Wight TRS-80 User Club Meets at 
London Hotel Ryde on last Friday of 
month 7 30pm Sean Coulson . 0903 
614589 


Kent. TRS-80 User Group Alan Reid. 22 
Woodeys Road Rainham. Kent. 0634 
367012 

Greater Manchester Northwest TRS-80 
User Group Meets at Barton Aero Club. 
Barton Aerodrome. Irtam. near Manchester 
on last Wednesday of month. 8pm Melvin 
Franklin. 40 Cowlees. Westhoughton, 
Bolton. Lancs 

Lancs. TRS-80 Colour Computer Group 
Subs £3 Contact Ian Wild. 53 Damton 
Road. Ashton-U-Lyne Lancs 0L6 6RL 
Liverpool. Merseyside TRS -80 Video 
Genie User Group Meets second Thursday 
ol month 7 1 5pm Peter Toottell, 101 
Swanside Road. Liverpool L14 7NL 061- 
220 9733 

London. SW. TRS-80 User Group Ron 
Evwrvtt on 01-394 2123 
Merseyside. TRS-80 User Group N 
Rushton, 123 Roughwood Drive. 
Northwood. Kirby Merseyside 
Milton Keynet. National TRS-80 and Genie 
User Group Bnan Pam. 24 Oxford Street. 
Stony Stratford. Milton Keynes 
Nottingham. TRS-80 Geme Users Group 
Meets at Wifford Modems Rugby Club 
House on first and third Wednesday every 
month at 7 30pm Contact Geoffrey Hiilier . 
5a Gregory Street. Lenton. Nottingham 
NG72LR Nottingham 783938 
Nottingham East Midlands TRS-80 Usor 
Group Mike Costello. 15 Langbank 
Avenue. Rise Park. Nottingham NG5 5BU. 
0602 751753 

London TRS-80 Gome Group Meets at 
Central Common Room The Residency. 
Nortnwick Park Hospital on first Sunday of 
month Dr Nick Robinson. Central Room. 
The Residency. Northunch Park Hospital 
Northanto TRS-80 User Group Meets at 
Welwyn Park Community Centre on 
alternate Thursdays at 7pm Neil Gnltlths. 
0858 65718 

West Herts 80 User Group Meets at St 
Stephen s Parish Centre. Station Road. 
Bncket Wood St Albans. Herts Tuesday 
evenings tortmghtty Contact Reg Smith. 

24 SempiH Road Hemal Hempstead 

Colour Genie 

International Colour Geme Users Group 
Write with SAE to The Secretary. NCGUG. 
46 Highbury Avenue. Bulwell. Nottingham. 
0602 278791 

National Colour Gania Usar Group. Marc 
Laduc. 46 Highbury Avenue, 
Nottinghamshire NG6 906 

ucso 

Hants. UCSO System Users Society John 
Ash. Dicoil Date Systems Ltd. Bond Close. 
Kmgsland Estate Basingstoke, Hants RG2 
006 

Oxford. UCSO Pascal UK Users Group 
Malcolm Harper. Oxford University 
Computing Laboratory Programming 
Research Group. 45 Banbury Road. Oxford 
0X2 6PE 

CUA 

CUA User Group Adrian Waters. 9 Moss 
Lane. Romford. Essex 

6502 

Bedfordshire 6502 User Group Walter 
Wailenbom. 21 Argyll Avenue. Luton. 
Bedfordshire LU3 1EG. 0582 26927 
Hento. 6502 User Group (Southern 
Region) Steve Cote, 70 Sydney Road. 
Gosport. Hants 


Let us know about your micro club or user 
group so we can be sure the information 
printed here is up to date. Drop a card to 
Wendie Pearson, Listings Editor, at Personal 
Computer News , 62 Oxford Street, London 
W1A 2HG, or give her a call on 01-636 68%. 


70 





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PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 198} 








DATA BASICS 


PCN Databases is presented in three-week cycles This week it s the turn ot software 
packages, next week hardware, and two weeks from now. peripherals We can't fit 
all software packages in. so we've compiled a selection . giving best sellers from 1 00 
publishers and distributors 

We confined coverage to five main types of applications business, education, 
games, home and utility All details published are the latest available 
Companies wanting to add their best-selling packages to Oatabasics . or wanting to 
update information already here, should send details to: Oatabasics. Personal 


Computer News. VNU. 62 Oxford Street. London W1A2HG 
APPLICATION Each software package is listed alphabetically by its application 
PRICE includes VAT 

MACHINE OPERATING SYSTEM on which the best selling packages runs 
OTHER VERSIONS indicates whether or not the package runs on a different machine 
or operating system 

MEOIA SUPPLIEO indicates in what format the package comes — either cassette, 
disk, or cartridge 


MAIL OROER AVAILABLE tells you whether or not the package is available by mail 
order 

HARDWARE REQUIRED shows the need for special hardware, such as disk drive, 
loystick or printer 

PUBLISHER DISTRIBUTOR This code refers to the distributor code table at the end of 
the listings, which will give the name and telephone number of the 
publisher distributor 

COMMENTS — any other points of interest 


SOFTWARE 



ii 

III 

i 

i 

i 

» 

nsn 

! 

I 

Del] 

ii 

I 

It 


1 


n 

BUSINESS 





■ 








C 339 25 

Apple II 


General Ledger 

48K 

EH 

■n 

— 


v 

— 

I 

*»» 

Cl 

Also on Apple HE a modules (£402 50 each) — sales, purchase, invoicing, etc 

Supports 1000 accounts and 100 analyses Self-balancing, full audit trail 


Cl. 147 70 

Apple II 



intorme* integrated Business System 

48K 

I 

T 

• 

— 


11 

Contains nominal, sales, purchase ledger ♦ VAT Can handle 800 accounts 

Contains accounting system modules plus Invoicing + slock 


£402 50 

Apple II 

• 

Nominal Ledger 

64K 

— 

* 

l 

— 


J1 

Also on ITT 3030 and Basis 106 Goes through profit loss ♦ balance sheets 

Also on Sirius. IBM PC. Apple III + UCSO Requires 1 32 column printer 


C431 25 

u 

_ 

Payroll 

48K 


_ 

T 

• 





Cl 

Supports weekly, monthly. + per monthly Up to 350 employees per disk 


£402 50 

*"*» 

-* 

Sales Accounting System 

64K 

mu 

- 

— 

f 

— 

• 

J1 

J1 

Requires 132 column printer, also Sirius. IBM PC. Apple III. UCSD 

Also on Sirkis. IBM PC. UCSO Provides conventional ledger 


£339 25 

Apple II 


Sales Ledger 

48K 

■n 


T 

• 



Cl 

Supports 700 + accounts Direct posting, credit control & 1 00 analyses, self balancing 


Cl. 725 

Commodore 8000 

-• 

Auditman 

32K 

mu 

_ 

•_ 





_ 

C4 

Also on Commodore 4000 Complete accounts production system 


C2.070 

Commodore 8000 


Micro! acts 

32K 

- 

— 

l 

— 

- 

Ml 

Designed for solicitors ♦ others who need to separate office & client s accounts 

Also on Commodore 700. Victor 8 Sirius £345 per module Integrated accounting 


£454 25 

Commodore 8000 


Micro-simple* 

32K 

■n 






M2 

Also on Commodore 64 (£172 50) Needs printer For smaller retail business 


C2.300 

Commodore 4000 


Pegasus Integrated Accounting Suite 

32K 

■n 






P3 

Aleo on MS-DOS (128K) Contains six stand alone modules 


Cl 16 00 

CPM 


CalcStar 1 4 

160K 

mu 






M10 

Also on IBM PC. MS-DOS Integrates with WordStar and InfoStar 


Cl, 437 50 

CPM 


Aurora Integrated Accounting Package 

64K 







G1 

Five stand alone modules Sales, invoicing, purchase, nominal and slock 


C2.760 

£805 

CPM 

— 

Boas 

64K 

mu 

■u 

_ 


_ 



_ 

FI 

Seven stand alone modules Can hnk to Autownter & Automdex 


£2.300 00 

CPM 

— 

dBFie* 

48K 

— 

*- 

5- 

— 

— 

El 

Also on CP M-66 and MS-DOS Amalgamation of sales, purchase & nominal ledger 

Open item six module accounting system. (£575 00) per module Works with dBase 1 1 


£402 50 

CPM 


Exact 

64K 







S3 

Also on MS-DOS Includes six modules — invoicing, ledgers, stock and payroll 


£1.840 

CPM 


ISBS-S 

48K 







G2 

Also on CP M-66 Contains seven modules 


£2.271 25 

CPM 


Multi- Index 

64K 

mu 






B1 

Also on MPM & PC- DOS Contains five modules Sales, nominal. VAT 4 stock control 


C569 2S 

CPM 


Nucleus 

64K 







C2 

Also on MS-DOS Disk drives of 280K needed A program generating system 


£1.431 75 

CPM 


Padmede Business Control System 

64K 

■u 



• 



P2 

Five modules (£286 35 per module) Nominal, sales, purchase, invoicing, stock 


£1.380 

CPM 


Motor Dealers Part Distribution 

64K 

mu 



• 



S2 

Also on CP M 86 8 MS-DOS Combines stock control, order processing ledgers 


£1.868 75 

CPM 


Peacntree Basic Accounting Systems 

48K 

mu 



• 



PI 

Also on MP M 8 MZ-OOS Available on hard disk ( £2 . 1 56 25) 5 stand alone modules 

— 

£287 50 

CPM 

* 

Safes Ledger 

64K 







S2 

Also on CPM 86 and MS-DOS Flexible ledger system 






Management 

£226 16 

CP/M 

• 

Scratch Pad 3 0 

48K 


• 


• 




M4 

Also on CPM 86. MS-OOS & PC-DOS Spreadsheet using virtual memory 

Medical 

£28 75 

£517 50 

Commodore Pet 

Apple II 

x 

• 

Inf Inita Arithmetic 

Medical System 

16K 

48K 

• 

T 

- 

• 

• 



- 

S5 

A2 

Also on Commodore 3000. 4000 & 8000 Available on floppy disk 

Also on Apple HE. Ill & Sinus (£573 85) On hard disk Age sex register 

Office Information 

£402 50 

£69 00 



Apple II 

• 

Prophet II 

Payroll 

48K 

48K 



- 

• 

f 

- 

• 

A4 

HI 

Also on IBM PC 4 Corvus Concept Information system wtxch acts as a noticeboard 

Also available as cassette lor Spectrum ZX81 (£25 00) Needs printer 


£287 50 

Apple II 

• 

Tabs Payroll 

48K 




• 




T3 

Also on CPM 4 MS-DOS (64K) Up to 2000 employees, nine pay schemes 

Production Control 

£977 50 

£2.645 

CPM 

CP V. MP M 


Powerday 

Modular Production System 

|| 



- 


: 

- 

- 

02 

84 

Also on MP M and MS-DOS Integrates with Omicrons nominal ledger Handles SSP 

Stock control. Ml of materials, etc. flexible reporting, audit trails, ate 

Protect Management 

Project Planning 

C747.00 

£1.150 00 

IBM PC 

Commodore 8000 

• 

Micronet 

Homat 

48K 

32K 

- 

f 

- 

- 

; 

- 


T2 

C3 

Also on CL PC, Sinus. Superbrain. Apple 11,4 others Critical path analysis 

Has eight optional vanants (all eight C4.025) Network logic 4 variety o* screen display 

Property Management 

£517 50 

Apple II 

• 

Property Management System 

48K 








A2 

Also on Apple III, Apple lie 4 Smut Pnnts rent reminders, demands ate 

Purchase Ledger 

£287 50 

Apple II 


Tabs Purchase Ledger 

48K 


•_ 



x 

x. 

z 

z 

T3 

Also on CP M 4 MS-DOS (64K) Open item ledger — automatic payment facility etc 

Sales Ledger 

£287 50 

Apple II 

"¥ 

Tabs Seles Ledger 

48K 

48K 

- 

f 

— 

• 

j- 

“1 


02 

T3 

Also on MP M 4 MS-DOS Integrates with Omicron s Nominal Ledger System 

Also on CPM 4 MS-DOS Part of integrated system 300 analysis codes 


£805 00 

CPM 

• 

Powersales 

48K 








02 

Also on MP M 4 MS-DOS Multi-user system based on mainframe software 


£325 

DEC Rainbow 100 

• 

Sales Ledger System 

64K 




¥ 




D2 

Also on DEC Male II Invoicing 4 monthly statement generating system 

Sales Order Processing 

£805 00 

CPM 

• 

Comped Sales Order Processing 

64K 




• 

• 



C2 

Also on CPM 80. 86 4 MS-DOS Comes on hard disk Control, stock, ledgers 

Sales, Purchase, Nominal Ledger 

£1.207 50 

CPM 

• 

Compact Sales. Purchase & Nominal Ledger 

64K 




• 




C2 

Also on CPM 80. 86 4 MS-DOS Fotows standard accounting procedures 


£80 50 

Apple II 

• 

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) 

48K 




• 




HI 

Also on Spectrum Does all SSP calculations 


£172 50 

Apple n 

• 

Intar-Stat 

48K 


• 


• 


"j 

¥ 

Q1 

Also on Basis 108 4 fTT 3030 Needspnnter 


£287 50 

Commodore Pet 

• 

Statistical Package lor PCs 

32K 


• ' 


• 




P7 

Also on Commodore 64 (two modules at £99 each) 4 Sinus Fully interactive 


£9 20 

Sharp MZ80A 

• 

Statistical Analysis 

48K 

• 

1 


• 



— 

K3 

Also on MZ80K Calculates mean 4 standard deviation tor up to 1 00 items 


£15 00 

Sinclair ZX81 

• 

Critical Path Analysis (CPA) 

8K 

• 

: 


• 




HI 

Also on Spectrum ( 16K) Activities entered from arrow diagram Finds critical path 


£977 50 

UCSD-P System 


Trend Plot 

128K 




• 



• 

P5 

T2 

Needs Hewlett Packard plotter Developed to analyse hrstoncal time senes data 


£3.289 

CPM 


M-StS 

48K 


• ' 






Stock control system tor manutactunng industry 


£33 92 

£25 00 

Newbram 


Slock Control 40 4 

32K 

• 


_ 

• 


_ 

_ 

E2 

Stores large quantities ol stock, accumulates new stock levels & checks stock level 


£1250 

Sinclair Spectrum 


Stock Controller 

48K 

• 


- 

• 

■ 

— 

- 

D5 

Also ZX81 Fast fwd add delete item Pnnts complete or selective lists 4 total value 

Can be used with or without ZX printer 

Word Processing 

£92 00 

Apple II 


Piewriler 

48K 


¥ 


• 

• 

— 

¥ 

M5 

Needs 00 column card Allows entry, editing 4 print formatting of any taxi type 


£125 35 

Apple II 


Wordhandier 

48K 


• 


• 




P4 

Word processor for the non- professional — minimum Apple system 


£152 95 

Apple III 

x 

Apple Writer 2 

48K 





• 

r 

— 

P6 

Also Apple II Hes word wrap, glossary 4 word processing language 


£28 50 

BBC Model B 


Alphabets 

32K 

• 



• 




H3 

Also available on disk Suitable lor home 4 business 


£1050 

BBC Model B 


WordPro 

32K 




• 


\— 

— 

14 

Includes DELETE. INSERT. SAVE. Dale etc 


£90 85 

Commodore 64 

H 

kilomast 

64K 


¥ 


• 


r 


R2 

Combined programmable word processor, Database and calculator 


£89 00 

Commodore 64 

• 1 

Paperckp 

64K 


• 





“ 

K5 

Also Commodore 8000 Compabble with WordPro 4 SpeilPro 


£488 75 

Commodore 8000 


Wordcraft 

32K 


•_ 




i 


D1 

Also on SuperPet. Sinus 1 IBM PC 4 CBM 64 Routine correspondence mailing etc 


£51.75 

Commodore Pet 


Papermata + 

16K 

¥ 



¥ 


t 


S5 

Also on Commodore 64. 3. 4. 4 9000 Available on floppy (£53 491 


£145 00 

£295 00 

CPM 

CPM 

:■ 

Mail Marge 

64K 

_ 

V 

z 




i 


XI 

Also on CP M 86 and PC-DOS An optional MERGE. PRINT extra tor Wordstar 


£287 50 

CPM 


Peachtext 

48K 

- 

V 

— 




¥ 

Pi 

Also on IBM PC, MS-DOS Integrates with CalcStar, InloStar Mail Merge SpellStar 

Also MP V 4 MS-DOS Needs high quality pnnter Contains proof reader 


£339 00 

CPM 


Parted Writer Speller 

64K 


• 


• 



~ 


Also MS-OOS 4 Apple DOS Contains quick reference card 


£431 25 

CPM 

• 

Select Word Processing System 

64K 


• ' 


• 

_ • 



B1 

Also MP M 4 PC DOS Screen-onentad system 


£316 25 

CPM 


Spellbinder 

48K 

z 

• 

z 

• 





Also on Oasis Word processing 4 office management system 


£225 00 

IBM PC 

— 

Easywnter II 

48K 

64K 

- 

• 

• ’ 

— 

•_ 

l 

— 

- 

G2 

XI 

Menu-driven, machine independent Set of key-tops provided 

Bold (ace 4 underscoring on screen 80 000 word spell checker extra (£43 151 


£340 40 

IBM PC 


VwWord 

64K 


¥“ 





¥ 

R6 

Mail merge facility with Visi file 

I 

£339 25 

MS-DOS 

T 

WordStar 

128K 


• 



¥~ 


• 

At 

Also on CPM Needs printer Complete screen-based WP 

I 

£4025 

Newtxam 


Word Processor 40 12 

32K 

x 



x 




E2 

Automatic word wrap, editing, saving paragraphs, deleting 

— 

£325 00 

£45 42 

OS9 

Sharp MZ804 


Stylograph 

32K 



T 






z 


S6 

Expandable system with modular design 


£49 95 

Tanrtv TRS 80 l 

• ' 

^EdiT 


— 


— 

• 


— 

¥ 

■ 


Also on MZ80B + K Available on disk (£91 94) One of few WP packages for Sharp 

| M'i'WM'j; 


■ 

■■■■■■■ 

■ 

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1 1 1 I oeginners oas>c utor te* |« • | T5 | Gives explanations and examples of Tl Basic - lets the user try 

11 1 ri3 95 Texas Instruments 99 4A Teach Yoursei Extended Bas< , 16K TF^ |¥| * T5 Needs extended Basic module 1 

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£24 95 

BBC Model B 

_ 

EDG Graphics Package 

32K 

IT 

- 

-r 

• 

- 

- 

- 

S7 

Computer aided design package Reviewed 1 1 3 83 


£50 60 

CP M 


CP V Graphics 

64 K 


• 



• 



D4 

Range goes up to £421 70 & conforms to GKS Graphics Standard 

^•9* 

£488 75 

£1.109.75 

CPV 

CPV 

; 

CtSCobol 

Level II Cobol 

64K 

96K 

- 

• 

• 


• 

• 

• 

- 

- 

Mil 

Mil 

Aiao on Unix Compact interactive ANSI 74 standard implementation of Cobol 

Also on Unix 8 MS-DOS High level ANSI 74 Compder. mamlrame-compal code 


£396 00 

£285 20 

CPV 

CP M 

T 

Fortran 80 

Pascal — MT -i- 

48K 

64K 

- 

• 

• 



• 

• 

- 

- 

T2 

XI 

Useful lor scientific applications, where Pascal is inefficient 

ANSI standard Pascal lor Z80 processors Also on CPM 86 (£484-90) 


£210 

CPM 


SupersoftC Compiler 

48K 


• 


• 

• 



M4 

Also on CP V-86. MS-DOS. PC DOS Fast implementation of C. 


£11443 

Commodore 64 


DTL -Basic Compiler 

32K 


• 


• 




Dl 

Also on Commodore 8000. 4000 & 3000 Also tape version on CBM 64 (£39 96) 


£1685 

BBC Model A 


Uap on the BBC 

16K 

¥ 



• 




W1 

Also on BBC Model B Book available £7 50 Uap « artifical intelligence language 


£253 00 

CPV 


ProPascal 

56K 


j* 


• 

¥ 



El 

Also on CDOS Needs two disk drives Native code Pascal 


£40 19 

Sharp MZ80A 


Forth 

48K 

• 



•_ 




KI 

Also on MZ80K 4 Osborne Altows implementation of Forth 


£25 

Spectrum 


Hisoft Pascal 

48K 








H5 

Reviewed in PCN week ending April 8 Pascal compiler and screen editor 


£421 70 

Any 8 or 16 bit machine 


PL/1 

48 r 





T 



D4 

A compact implementation based on ANSI standard general purpose subset of PL 1 


£350 75 

IBM PC 

• 

Latticed 

64K 




J. 




LI 

Also on MS-DOS C Compiler lor 1 6 bit machines— lull implementation & execution 


£172.50 

UCSD p-Syslem 


UCSD Pascal 

48K 


T 


• 

•_ 



D4 

Portable Pascal lor systems development or commercial applications 

Linker 

£224 25 

CPV 


Plink2 

48K 


• 


• 

• 



U 

Up to 8 megabytes 


£59 80 

CPV 


Operating Guide 

48K 




• 




El 

Works by putting CPV to steep & replacing it wrth operating environment 


£22 94 

Apple n 


Fasdos 

48K 

• 



• 




P4 

Oak operating system for Apples which speeds up location of binary & Applesoft files 


£277 

8086 micro 


Concurrent CP M-86 

48K 


¥ 



• 



T2 

Enables lour separate tasks to run in a single user station 


£431 25 

Many processors 


UCSO p-System 

48K 


• 


• 

• 



D4 

Portable user -friendly operating system inducing one compiler 


£296 20 

8080 and Z80 micro* 


CPV- 

128K 


• 



• 



D4 

Upward compatible from CP V enhanced 8-tnt micro OS. 


£126 50 

8080 and Z80 micros 


CPV 2 2 

64K 





• 



D4 

OS tor 8-bit micros with over 1 5 miMon users 


£379 50 

8080 and Z80 micros 


MPM 

64K 


• 



• 



D4 

Multiuser, multitasking Features record & file locking, date & time stamping etc 


£21080 

8086 and 8068 micro* 


CPV-86 

64K 


□ 



• 



D4 

Manages up toone megabyteof RAM & altows up to 1 28 megabytes of on-line storage 


£548 20 

8086 and 8088 micros 


MP M-86 

64K 


U 

■ 


• 



D4 

Multi-user Multi-tasking Multi-user capability with multi-programming lor each user 


£168 70. 

8080. Z80. 8086 and 8088 micros 


CP Net 

64K 


u 

■ 


• 



D4 

A CP M compatible O S designed to access local & networked resources 


£295 20 

Motorola MC68000 


CP M 68K 

64K 


l: 



• 



D4 

Extends CP V to Motorola MC8800 nvcroprocesaors Single user, single tasking 

Program Generator 

£228 85 

Apple II 

T 

Quick code 

64K 


u 



• 



P4 

Also on IBM PC Program generator lor dBase II 


£126.50 

CPV 

• 

Forms-2 

64K 


L! 



• 



Mil 

Also tor Una & MS-DOS Programming tool, for generating Cobol code 


£379 50 

CPV 

• 

Last One 

64K 


LJ 

■ 


• 



S3 

Aiao on MS-DOS and Apple DOS 

Programming Tool 

£2.500 

Apple II 

• 

Pascal Isam Pascal Form 

48K 


L3 



• 



A4 

Also on IBM PC & Corvu* Concept Needs Corvus hard disk Pascal prog tool 


£287 50 

CPV 

• 

Fitoshare 

48K 


i: 



• 



Mil 

Also on MPM Bank-switched memory or CPM network 


£7 95 

Dragon 32 


Dragon Selection 2 

32K 

• 

■ 






D3 

Four unlay programs which can be listed to see how the program works 

Telex 

£2.113 70 

Superbrain 

¥ 

KAcro Telex 

64K 


L 



• 



El 

Also on Televideo 802 Enables automatic serving- receiving or telex by micro 

Testing Tool 

£95 82 

CPM 80 

• 

Diagnostics II 

32K 


L 



• 



M4 

Also on CP M-86 and MS DOS Tests systems 

Time Recording 

£862 50 

Commodore 8000 • 

Mmuteman 

32K 


L 



• 



C4 

Aiao on Commodore 4000 Time recording system Can produce range or reports 


£402 50 

CPV-86 

V 

Time Recording System 

64K 



L- 

j 


— 

— 

02 

Cl 

Aiao on CPV 80 Control over manhour expenditure by job or account number 

Aiao on Apple lie Error chedung. copying Single disk copy Label disk 

Utilities 

£115 00 

Apple II 

IBM PC 

•* 

C-Food Smorgasbord 

64K 


' ¥ 

\- 

# 

¥ 



LI 

Decimal arithmetic, low level & terminal independent input & output 


£79 35 

CPV 

t 

Visa 80 

64K 

_ 

[¥ 

t 

•. 


J—L* 

M13 

Constructs a menu-dnven system to your design 


H Boom. 01-5801 


reding, Brighton 
0902 12 Bnstoi ! 


>0*3 Bug-Byte. 051-227 2299 84 Byteeoft. 0480-215005 85 

a Computech Systems. 01 -794 0202 C2 Compact Accounting. Dorking 887373 a Claremont Control. Rothbury 21 06 1 C4 
Computer Service* Midland*, 021-3824171 CSComshare L 0T222 5665 Of " * 


Computers. Nottingham 412777 K3 KoOra Micro Marketing. Henley-on-Thames 2512 
LI Lifeboat 01-836 9028 

Ml MMS. Bedford 40601 K2 Mtorosimptex. Macctestiato 61 5000 M3 McDowell Knaggs & Associates. Worcester 612261 M4 Micro 
Technology Tunbndge We«s 45433 UK Micromedia 01 -843 9457 M8 Mokmerx. Bexhili-on-Sea 223636 M7 Micro Power Leeds 
683186 M Melbourne House. 01-977 9160 M9 Mercury Software Darwen 776677 M10 MicroPro. 01-499 5777 MU MicroFocuS. 
695891 M12 Microdeal. St Austell 67676 Ml) Med.atech. 01 -903 4372 


Wa»ingtord 3771 
Bvftoet 47541 
Dl Dataview C< 


Colchester 8694 1 4 82 DEC. Basingstoke 59200 83 Dragon Date. Kenfig Hil 744700 84 Digital Research. Newbury 
35304 ns mpar Software. 0329 46756 
Q Encotei Systems. 01 -686 9687 E2 Elstree Computer Centre. 01-953 6821 
n Ferran, 01-751 5791 F2 Farmptan Computer Systems, Ross-on-Wye 64321 

61 Great Northern. Leeds 589980 G2 Graftoom Systems, 01-727 5581 _ 4 

Ml HUderbey . 01 -485 1059 N2 Harltord Software Northwich. 781 1 56 83 H 4 H Software. Runcorn 65566 84 Heinemann. 01 -637 

? Intormek^M - intelligence (UK). 01-543 371 1 13 IBM UK Product Services. Basingstoke 56144 M UK Software. 

Blackpool 21 555 S Impact Software. 031-441 4257 N Imagine Software. 051 -236 6849 

s. Aberdeen 630526 K4 Keen 


Computers. 01-768 1022 PS PE Consulting Group. Egham 3441 1 P8 Personal Computers. 01-377 1 ; 

12407-4906 

l Southampton 20169 

ki Hapio i ermmais. High Wycombe 26271 >2 Rabbit Software. 01 -863 0833 63 R 4 R Software Gloucester 502819 
SI Systematic* international Microsystems. Haverhill 61 121 S2 SGS Software Products. 01-486 7498 S3 Silicon Valley Trade. 
01 -242 2807 S4 Southdate. 01-994 6477 SS Superset. 01-861 1166S4 Seed, Brownhitls 378151 S7 Salamander Brighton 
771942 18 Soto Software, Worcester 42415218 SHversoft. 01-7484125 Sit Sinclair Research. Cambridge 353204 SI 1 Stage 
One Software. Poole 735656 S12 SBD Software 01-870 9275 S13 Starcade, 051 -236 6628 S14 lam Stewart. 0259-60840 
QTai * 1 “* 



fm Sate ZX Spectrum 48K plus software 
plus literature Costf 1 92, cell at £95 Tel: 
01-262 OK* after 6pm 
Onte FX 7B2P • FU adaptor plus 
software books. Cost £120. more power- 
ful than current Casio models Ideal 
scicntific/Stals Machine £50 ono. Tel: 
01-579 7130 after 7pm 
««1 with I6K RAM (Mcmotech) all 
leads ♦ mains adaptor, manual, green 
screen, magazines, tape recorder Soft- 
ware includes Night Gunner. Dodgems, 
connect 4 Galauans + more Only £60 
Tel: Marlow 5571 

•tart, Stratus, Apple Panic. Darts. 
Snooker and Billiards. Swop all for 
Chopliftcr ROM and Claim Jumper 
Offers considered. Tel: 051-226 0298 
lBKZXBIIorsale, power supply, manual, 
leads. Maplin keyboard, appro* £30 
software, including Backgammon. In- 
vaders. Breakout Sell for £55 ono Tel: 
0673 61290 (Wellon) 

TV*# 14*. extended Basic. Chets car- 
tridges. cassette lead, two program 
books, worth £265. asking £160 S 
Deans. 71 Erskinc Road. Chimsidc. 
Berwickshire. Scotland Tel: 089 08 1 579 
after 6pm 

■aahof quotes, cartoons etc , on compu- 
ters. data analysis, new. £2. post paid 
John Bihby, 33 I laugh Shaw Road. 
Halifax HXI 3 All 

•cans Atom. 5K RAM. KK ROM. all 
leads, colour encoder, introductory cas- 
settes. 2 books, only £15 ono 40 
Northlcigh Grove. Market Harborough. 
Leicestershire Tel: <0858)65385 
Far Sate or swop BBC prugrams cassette 

Power etc 4 Maple Road. Aldcrlcy 
Edge Tel: 0625 585267 after 6 30 
fhagn software: Microdeal KalerpiUai 
Attack. £5 Planet Invasion. £5 Sala- 
mander Startrek. £6 Golf. £5 Quicksil- 
va. Mined Out. £4 Sell or swop Tel: 
Paul on (04536) 3741 
2XS1 games Sinclair software tapes 1,3, 
6. 4. Saxon Sorcery Adventure. Hang 
man. Football Manager. Michael Orwin 
cassette three, sell lot for £15. Tel: 
Frodsham 31340. 

M*ul2K+ 12K utility ROM. Wordpack 
ROM. Acorasoft games packs 5, 9, II. 
chess programs, adventure, all books, 
colour board. £210 ono Tel Sheffield 
(0742)748000 

» Model I. Level II I6K. black/ 
white monitor, cassette recorder. £170. 
Tel: Huntingdon 51945 
Orle 1 48K software Xenon. Candyfloss. 
3D Maze for sale Tel: 01-445 5989 


PCN Billboard 

(Was Dante disk drive . £85 ono Seikosha (Me 1 software Pa.mei Dinkv tc.,n«. 


TRS80. 32K expansion interface. 
Offers IBM/ITEL word proccssor/tcr- 
minal . £250 o no. Tel: 0455 612324. 
Sharg M2B0K Basic and Pascal. seU £295 
or exchange BBC B with adjustment 
Tel: Kenilworth (0926) 59658 any time 
•Mia selling up Two 48K machines, 
disks. 80 colour cards, monitors Visi- 
Cak. PFS. CCA-DMS. Visidex. For 
mat-80. Sandy WP Epson MX-70. drive 
cardscablcs Tel: 0242 27504 evenings 
S pectrum u.ltware sale, lop titles. Spec- 
tres. Arcadia. Timcgatc. Horaces. Jet- 
pac plus others At 60% of original price 
Contact Steven Chan. 16 1-awrencc 
Street. Glasgow 

B8C Model B y joysticks and cover, four 
months old. immaculate condition Any 
reasonable offer accepted Also 48K 


1 software Painter. Dinky Kong. 
The Castle. Xenon I. all £5 each 
Atari/Vic joystick Pomtmastcr. £8 
Chris. 24 Horton Park Avenue. Brad- 
ford. West Yorkshire BD7 3BL 
S pv rt mm Aspect. Chess. £5 50 each. 3D 
— Tunnel. Football Manager. £4 each. 
Mined Out. Meteor Storm. £3 each 
Wanted Fuller Box. Spectradraw 2 Tel: 
High Wycombe 443184. 

Mart 44838(10 software to swop or sell. 
I6K. 24K, and 32K cassettes, also Star 
Raiders cartridge Tel: Derek 0382 
76554 after 6pm 

Mart game cartridges Missile Command. 
Star Raiders. Sub Marine Commander. 
Miner 2049er. £15 each or £50 all four 
Tel Broadstonc 691306 
Sharp M Zw I A . hardly used . original box . 
Basic SA 5510. Sharp software pack. 
£250 only for quick sale. LJoyd. 32 
Eastlcach. Cirencester. Glo*. Tel: 
complete ♦ £30 worth of software Southrop (036785) 361 
Reasonable offers accepted. Tel: 01-427 Tans T199/4A. two months old. used 

!”»■ . . including present promotion pack- 

Fer Sate, Acronsoft Snooker. Sphinx, age. (joysticks. Connect 4) Offers over 
Snapper. £7 each Digital Fantasia. £ 100 considered 90 Pentre Hose. Coed 
Circus. W Akyrz. £7.50 each AFT Eva. Cwmbran. Gwent 
Painter, £6. S. Invasion. Gunsmokc, £6. 

Tel: Bl ack wood (0495) 225331 
Dragan 32 with nine months guarantee 
Also software, cassette recorder, book 
with 21 games. £190 ono Tel: 01-854 
2324 after 6pm or weekends 
2,000 Shaf ts continuous listing paper 
(I I'X8*). just £19.50 per bo*, post free 
SAE for sample sheets. C L Dcith. 

Stoneygatc House. Island Close. Hmc 

kley. Leicestershire 

Man Hobbit tape drive for BBC with Database, games, seven months old. 
EPROM operating system. PSU and Secuncor delivery, included £349 ono 
converted software for most games Tel: Dumbarton 31969 
Price £130 ono. Tel: March 55871 Sava over £200. Texas TI99/4A plus an 
evenings amazing £360s worth of software and 

a Printer plus, unopened pack of five accessories, only £300 ono. including 
rolls, £45 ono. Tel: 0604 56126 6- 7pm Mini Memory arid Joysticks Tel: 01-330 
weekdays 3310. 

Mart Video Computer System plus Hewtett Packard 7SC. brand new. un 
Combat. Space Invaders. Asteroids. wantcdgift.stiUinboxwithmanualsclc, 
Pacman, Yars Revenge. Breakout. £399 for quick sale Cliff. 27 Ludlow 
Laser blast Cost £240. accept £160 ono Bracknell. Berkshire RGI2 4BZ Tel: 
Tel: 0604 56l26 6-7pm weekdays on 01-732 5588. 

Mart 4(8). 48K. proper keyboard plus Wc-20 CBM 64 original programs wanted 
£200 worth software. £360 Tel: 01-767 for new user group Also hack copies of 
4732 after 5pm computer magazines. Write Secretary 

TO 80 Colour Computer l6K.asncw.1n SOCUG Unit 5. 19 Huth Street, 
box. £80 worth of software including Labrador 4215, Queensland . Australia 
joysticks. £199. Tel: 01-455 5380 Tel: 075 32 OOhl 


Asteroids, plus others guarantee until 1 1 
September 83, £65 Spectrum wanted. 
23 Cattle Lane. Abbott* Ann. Nr 
Andover Tel: 294. 

Sharp MZ80A 48K. manual and many 
programs, nine months old. £395 Tel: 
Nantwxh (0270) 780084 evenings 
Sharp MZ80A. over £150 of software. 


READERS’BUY&SELLFORM • 

Billboard is /*( jVs micro marketplace. Whether you are buying, selling, or swopping secondhand 
goods, just fill in the form up to a maximum of 24 words, including your name . address or full telephone * 
number and send it with a cheque or postal order for £ 1 .50 payable to VNU Business Publications I 
to Billboard, Personal Computer News, 62 Oxford Street, Ixmdon W1A 2HG. But remember, this , 
service is not for commercial advertisements; we will not include ads from companies large or 
small, or from anyone carrying on a profit-making business. Also, we cannot guarantee to place ads 1 
m specific issues it s first come, first served. No reprints either unless you send in another form. I 
Please write clearly putting only one word in each box. and remember to include vour full address 
and telephone number, even if you don't want them in the ad. 


2X81. 16K RAM pack, extra keyboard. 
8-I6K games including 3D Monster 
Maze. Flight Simulator. 3D Defender 
Scramble Cost £115. sell for £80 on. 
Tel: 0206 331207 

VMaa Caate lbK, manuals, leads, ligl 
pen. £160of tapes. Kansas Worth £525. 
seUfor £275 ono. Tel: 01-808 6522 after 

1*8 2X81, keyboard, ribbon connector 
joystick interface. £325 of software. 
Zonx sound. Will sell a* individuals or all 
at £280 ono. Worth £4504 . Tel: 01-609 
4936 

Mari VCS. plus ten games. Space 
Invaders. Combat. Basketball. Shoot 
Out etc. joysticks. £120ono 12 Weavers 
Terrace. Micklcthwaitc Road. Fulham. 
London SW6 IOE Tel: 01-381 3290 
Spactmm (apes, half price. Voice Chess. 
Gulpman. Meteor Storm. Invaders. 
Cambridge collection VU-Filc VU-CaJc 
Spcctvound A II original cassettes, most 
ly I6K. Tel: Newmarket 667240 (even- 
ings) 

Samp Fidelity 2001 C B for Vic20Supcr 
Expander or Assembler cartridge or Vic 
software 50 Hough End Road . Hatters- 
ley, Hyde. Cheshire SKI4 3PX Tel: 
OH MS 0463 

Smp Atari 4(XH6K with Basic. Program 
Recorder, joysticks and manuals, plus 
cash for BBC model A or B “ 
Medway .361515 
Vk-20 with cassette recorder and Supci 
Lander game cartridge, excellent condi- 
tion. first offers over £79. Tel: 01-340 
4206 

0*ar SO ZX Spectrum games and utilities 
All original tapes, includes most of top 
10 Average price £3.50 each Depen- 
dant on program title . Tel : 061 -665 1 725 . 
BBC disk drive Mitsubishi slimline HO 
track double-sided drive eased with data 
and power cables 4(180 switchabtc. one 
month old. immaculate £295 ono Tel: 
051-644 6568 

sasvs sensory chess computer game, 
hardly used. 8 levels, from beginner to 
tournament-standard. £7l)ono Robert. 
Flat 5. 64 Park Road. Lewlon. Not- 
tingham 

BBC games to swop or sell including 
Acornsoft. Quicksilva. Program Power 
and UK. Tel Felixstowe 272495 
C amniidiri 64. ICN programs for £4.50 
including Sprite Designer. Valley 64. 
Scramble. Golf, Explore. Othello 21 
Windermere Crescent. Eastboi 
East Sussex Tel: 0323642753. 

Mart cassette software ongmab with 
documentation, as new Galactic Chase- 
I6K (Gala sian). Galactic Trader 32K. 
(Graphic Adventure). Tan-Trek 24K 
(Star Trek adventure). All colour. £9 
each. Tel: Mik e on Bolton 593313. 

*"» eeapMa su pc r 8 sound cine system . 
cost £350 for 80/132 column matnx 
printer Tel: Swansea 55231 Ext. 16 9-5 

TTO4A speech synthesiser, brand new. 
hargain £20. Tel: Wolverhampton 
(0902)337490. 

150 Claw tear magazines including Prac- 
tical Computing. Personal Computer 
World. Computing Today and many 
more Goldmine of computer informa- 
tion. £20. Buyer collects. Tel: Wol- 
verhampton 337490. 

Bargain. TOBBl.il/16K. VDU. cassette 
recorder, sound/monilor. lower case 
MOD. software games worth £200. 
RS232. for quick sale. £300 000 Bcrnic. 

24 Darenth Drive, Gravesend. Kent. 
Tel: 0474 332817 

Me SB cassette. I6K Ram. Super Expan- 
der. Joystick. Jelly Monsters Gridrun- 
ncr. Chess plus books, six months old, 
£200 ono. Tel: Swansea (0792 ) 71958 

C iiamafa n Prt 2001 8K. £160 ono. Tel: 
0484 643047 after 6pm 
(Mc-1, 48K, as new. Xenon I. printer 
cable, (worth £15). also programming 
book £130. Tel: 30% (Oxford) Ask for 


PCN SEPTEMBER 


-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 


MICROSHOP 


Rates: £1(1 per single column cm. Minimum size 3 cm. Series discount available Mechanical Data: Column width. 1 column 
57mm. 2 colours 118mm. 3 columns 179mm. Copy Dates: 10 days prior to publication. 

Contact: Ian Whorlev or Christian McCarthy on 01-323 3211 . 



LYNX LYNX LYNX LYNX LYNX LYNX 

Arcade Gaines to knock the spots off 
all other games 
on the Lynx 

WwO VOODOO 

W TREASURE ISLAND 

£6.95 

Fast and deadly real-time arcade action with full colour and sound. Get the 
treasures fast before the Zombies get you. Death will stalk you at every 
turn. Play it if you dare! 

« SPACE INVADERS 

^ £6.95 

Deadly real-time arcade action with full colour and sound. The most 
fantastic reproduction of the most successful arcade game ever in 100% 
machine code. Features: as above. 

TELEPHONE & 

® ADDRESS DATABASE * 

£6.95 

Stores limitless number of entries. Quick accessquery facility. Easy touse. 

HOME ACCOUNTS 
SYSTEM ★ 

£6.95 

Keeps the whole year’s accounts. Easy to use. 

CASSETTE 

DATA FILE HANDLER * 

£6.95 

Turn your Lynx into a powerful computer. A must for every Lynx user. 
Designed for programs that need to keep data files on cassettes. Includes 
manual and example application. 

* As exhibited by Computers et the Microtrede 83 Exhibition, Berbieen Centre 


Send P.OVCheque to 

17 Devonshire Hill Lane, London N1 7 8LJ 


p. Right shi 
»y. Move. A 


»** TEXTPLUS ********** 

lor student, office or home user with BBC B & Epson printer Input Edrt with 
m an extensive set of facilities Centre, Tab (SO user -set & displayed). Optional word 
snt Winter codes ( inc graphics for symbols), word & free space count. Insert. Delete. 

re). Search. Review. Preview (to hide printer codes). Justify (selective). 


Cassette + booklet. £12 50 post paid 

REMSOFT 

18 GEORGE STREET. BRIGHTON BN2 1RH 
tel: (0273) 602354 



AQUARIUS SOFTWARE 


n. Cases Mil 2AT. 

Telephone (02**) 55*5*5 (24 hours) 
Pastel mailbox 02*855*5*5 

A SINCLAIR SOFTWARE HARDWARE 
SPECIALIST CONVENIENTLY SITUATED 
NEAR Ml AND M62 MOTORWAYS 

PHILIP COPLEY HI-FI LTD 

6 WESTLEY STREET. OSSETT, 
WEST YORKSHIRE 
TEL: 0924 272545 

HOURS OF BUSINESS TUE-SAT 10 30-5 30 
OPEN BY APPOINTMENT UNTIL BP M 


SEPTEMBER 
PRINTER SALE 


...C2S0-VAT 
£2*5 -VAT 
— £375 -VAT 


THE COMPUTER CENTRE 

r siiDU nun. ukiito* iizzaid uds 
TEL. tests) 176*22 - 3*2504 


Program Wanted 

We require quality program for moil mkrm. 

We pay cadi I cm, royalties and distribute in the 
UK. USA and Europe. 

'(0256)25107 


DREAM SOFTWARE 

P.O. toi 64 Hjffts. KG21 2U 


I2K ROM A UK RAM from 

16V Art* II 4SK Numeric tcytehudfcN the *euu 145. Ill 

aapdj b Any dk dy»t a 

Kmoct 16 peer. Mem games carte rtt Ccmmmcs TJ9 pruascr 12» 
(omnsAkntPMi 

atom VIC canncters m teoch C7N D€D RFC 125 VIC mtmt CIS 
Emoa HX2D 11 W Caoen FXX» 145 (It* RAM IIS) Some Sharp 
1165. MZJQA U49 <«-. comp uted - ami Smdeir 
fTS ItK Sotruan me Ha 


82 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 




MICROSHOP 

Software 


SOFTWARE 
FOR YOUR 
CBM 64 


SCRAMBLE £6 50 

FR0GGER nn 

SPRITE MAN 

CRAZY KONG 

£650 

£6.50 

PANIC 

£6.5fl 

LANDER 

£9 Ofl 

ATTACK OF THE MUTANT CAMELS 

£750 

£7 so 

STAR TREK 

R0X 

£6 50 
£4 95 

GRID RUNNER 

£7 50 


ANEW ADVENTURE 
FOR YOUR 64 
DEAD MAN'S GOLD: C8.50 

We dare you to seek the treasure and return 
it to the cofrect grave 

NEW ADVENTURE FOR 
YOUR VIC 20 + 16K 
THE ENCHANTED CHAUCE: E7.50 

Find the ChaHce if you can. 

Cheque&P.O. to: 

BYTEWELL 

203 COURT ROAD 
BARRY, 

S. GLAM CF6 7EW 
Tel: (0446) 742491 


For All Your Micro Needs 

MiCRowMir 


One 46KC40 Software 


(0634) 376702 


C1M.9S 


£169 00 
£275 00 
£399.00 


Dragon 32 

Dragon Otac Onva and Conlroftar 
BBC Modal B 
Aoom Smote Ore* Dnva 

DrscInterfacetmcM) C99.00 

Shmlina Cumana One Dnva CSSOA £244 95 

SpactrunASK £129 93 


Fuftranga o« aaftwara tor al mi 


w or micro 


IIOKSI K \( IN(. 


Profgaior Frank Geo^7n?^?ORSE 
RACE FORECAST program it a 
tar.out punter’s aid to sensible betting 
Data is entered from a sporting news- 
paper and the program produces 
betting recommendations. 

Versions available for 
Apple II. Pet Video Genie. TRS-80 
Spectrum. 2X81, BBC B\ NewBrein. 
Sharp MZ80A. Sharp MZ80K. 

From: Bureau of Information Science 
Commerce House. High Street. 

Chet font St. Giles. Buckinghamshire. 
Football Pools Forecast available 



SOFTWARE 


URGENTLY REQUIRE 

GAMES PROGRAMS OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY 

FOR THE SPECTRUM. 0RIC, VIC 20, COMM. 64. B B C. 

CASH PAYMENTS OR ROYALTIES 

SEND YOUR SUPERFAST. MACHINE CODE MASTERPIECE IN THE 
STRICTEST CONFIDENCE TO:— 


PROGRAMMERS!!! 

ARE ALL YOU BENT FOR RECOGNITION??? 

THEN CONTACT SAFFRON FOR CONTRACT WORK 


C.C.S. LTD. (SAFFRON) 
174A HIGH STREET, 
HORNCHURCH. 

ESSEX RM12 6QP 
TEL: (04024) 75613 


HURRY WHt 

Oregon 0RAGRUNNER 

VICM CRAZY KONG 

CBM64 PRACTICALC 

ILE STO 

R.R.P.E8.78 

R.R.P.tl.ll 

CKSLA 

HAS 088. .. 
HAS E5 45 

ST 

Catle toltarare 

Spectrum THE HOBBIT 

DM1 TRADER TRILOGY 

OH* HARRIER ATTACK 

■W MUSIC PROCESSOR 

Plus many more titles at low, low 
CBM 64 now only £194.99 : VIC ] 
SPECTRA VISION JOYSTICKS NOW ONI 
Phone 0895 54751 6pm-9p«n M 

HARD & SOFT 

«5 SNOWDEN AVE., II 
MAi 

RAP C14 95 

A.A.PEJ9S 

R A P ES 95 

r.... R A P C14 85 
price*, ALSO COMP 
(0 now only £129.99: 
Yaw note: a 

ON-FRI ORDERSf 

rcoMPi 

iillinc;don, m 

IL ORDER ONLY 

HAS £11 98 .... 
MAS ES5S 

HAS ESH 

...HA8.tH.88... 
LITERS AT LOW 
Atari 800 now onlj 
l.l. PRICES INCl.l SI 

l5.00to£50t)0C.C 

ITERW; 

IIDDX., 1 BIO 1 

Melbourne Hie 
Quicksllva 
Martech 
Ovicksilva 

PRICES 

£249.99 

IVE VAT, PAP 

U>. available 

KRE 

DSK 

r 


“DID SOMEONE SAY 
CAPTAIN PHOENIX?” 


ADVENTURE GAME 

DRAGON 32 & COLOUR COMPUTER 

DOMAIN OF THE GODS’ 


Muse? 

★ Random features ( No two games are identical ) * Sharp, witty and stimulating 

Price: £7.95 (inclusive) 

Cheques Postal Orders to: 

Interco Associates, 162A Ballards Lane 
Finchley, London N3 2PE Tel: 01 -349 3463 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28. 19K3 




MICROSHOP 


rL NANOS qulck r»Nrsn 
to UM lf»n IN 

& DRAGON 12 
^ I >MMODORE64V1C20 
SINCLAIR ZX81 

MCK SHOT MH-coMrtaq intlkU - 

DRAGON 32 til 

COMMODORE 84 VIC 20 C13 


COMPUTER 

CONSUMABLES 

QUALITY DISKS AT 
COMPETITIVE PRICES 

Skmi PrtMptrksilS 

Commodore Pel fn»C20 0P 


£14.35 \ + £\ 
} p&p 

1C 20 £12.35 J v r 


£21 00 
£25 01 

« Ms4£21 05 

BSSi oo 


EXCALIBUR SOFT: 

CO AVALON COMPUTING 

Presents Survival' lor unexpanded VIC 20s 
5 exciting games on one cassette 

Terminal Termite*, Ring* y o«?Nan 


AVALON COMPUTING 

14 Cliff Road. Hornsea, 
North Humberside. HU1 8 1 LL. 


01 - 699-4040 


COMPUTER CARRYING CASE 

Suitable lor Spectrum, One. Lynx. Sord, Vic 20. 
Commodore 64 . or computers of similar sue The 
hart case is finished m black with twin lockable 
fasteners and carrying handle 
Separate pockets hold computer manual, leads, 
power pack, cassette player and five cassettes 
Folds flat for storage 


SHORT-LENGTH 
COMPUTER AUDIO TAPES 


If you have searched without succetefor 
high quality low cost short-length tapes 
then sit beck and relax. 

Premium Grade Agfa R F W Cassettes 
Manufacturers of high quality Wank casset- 
tes suitable lor programming. For example, 
with a minimum order of 25, you can 
purchase 25 cassettes ot 2 Vi minutes each 
side for only £10.00 plus postage & packing 
of Cl 95p. Fill in the coupon and post with 
your remittance to: 

R.F.W. Recording Supplies. Orasn Acres, 
Northlands. Slbaay Nr Boston. Lincolnshire 
PE22 0UA Tel: 0205 750 595.^ 

Please send me high-quality audio tapes in 
the quantity indicated (tick where apptic- 
able) 25 CASSETTES 
(including £1 .95 p&p) 

□ 2 . mms El 195 

□ 5mm» £12.20 

□ 6 mins £12 45 

□ 7Vimin* £12 60 

n 10 mms £13.20 

□ l2Vknaw... C13.95 

50 CASSETTES 
(including £2.49 p&p) 

□ 2Vkmins -..£22 75 

□ 5 mms £22 96 

□ 6 mms £23 49 

n 7 Vi mms £23 99 

□ lOmms £24 99 

□ 12V4mme £26 49 

100 CASSETTES 
(including £3.50 p&p) 

□ 2 Vi mms £43 50 

□ 5rmns £44 50 

nermns £45 50 

□ 7V4mms £46 50 

□ lOmms £48 50 

□ 12Vimms £53 50 

Including inlay card & side-labels. 

Total Remittance £ 

NAME 

ADDRESS 







MICROSHOP | 


AMOEBA 

SOFTWARE 

* ‘Set for our A utumn launch ” 

We are looking for more commercially 
viable programs for the Spectrum ZX8 1 
and Commodore 64. Good royalties 
paid — immediate evaluation made. 

Send your tapes to 

AMOEBA SOFTWARE 

54 WALDEN AVENUE, 
CHISLEHURST, KENT BR1 6EW 


[ Computcromo- 
T he mid lend/ 
| Home Co 

Jp/wC ILltl/L/ 


FOR BBC, SPECTRUM & 
ALL LEADING MICRO’S 

STAFFORD: 59 FOREGATE ST 
TEL: 0785 41899 
STOKE-ON-TRENT: 
MARKET SQUARE ARCADE 
TEL: 0782 268620 


ORIC-1 OWNERS. 

Tangerine created Oric-1 now TUG creates 
the rest. An independent users group with a 
soW reputation for progressive system 
support Monthly newsletters, meetings, 
software, hardware, reviews, advice and 
lots more. We have a proven record of 
performance on our system Join TUG. 
You’ll like us. we do' Send £1 .00 + S.A.E. 
(A4) for sample newsletter and details 
Tangerine Users Group, 1 Marlborough 
Drive. Worle. Avon BS22 0DQ 


Classified ad today sold next week 

IMIS IS VOI R OPPORTUNITY TO ADYERTISK IN PERSONAL COMPUTER NEWS 
I BRITAIN'S NO. I MICRO-COMPITER WEEKLY'. 

KOROMA J5pPER WORD. YOl ( AN RKI \Y YOI R MESS \OE TO READERS ALL OVER 
THE COUNTRY! 

\Nnti*\nm .ul in the N>v> Ivlow oik- »<» ul pci ho* and a minimum nl ?tl wonk Wnicm 
I Ul < k Kt \ I ’ 1 1 \ I s .mil it *n i forget t . miu lint \ i mu n.mii .mil .ulili i nsi > i telephone number in 

I tlli .iiUi lt l llik lliili .1 ll\ woiils ICi|IIIICil ill hold |«pr. 

I I Ml li ,li .nllllk IS li || .In- l>, (m,. i-MIl ll.lli I " i MMIIi lll.ll \i Mil 111 ,l|'|k ,M s III ilk Ik \| |ssiu |||| 

I mu thi tonn and m ikI it with min cheque I't i straight aw ;»\f per word 

I ( lit out this coupon anil m-iiiI with tiHir 1 1 inill.im i to: 

MK Kosiinrt i. \ssii in), ri nsn\ \i t ompi i kr smvs. a2o\m>ki>si kkk i. i.iimnis w i \ 2in. 





Recruitment 


MICROSHOP 


Services 


GAMES PROGRAMMING AND DESIGN 

Acornsoft are expanding their team which designs 
and programs original arcade-type graphics games. 
Drawing on Acornsoft’s existing expertise in this 
field, the team will include a graphics designer who 
will be involved at all stages in the development of 
games to create novel game themes and to design 
screen displays. 

Applications are invited for the following vacancies 
in the graphics games design team: 

Team Leader — preferably with 6502 machine-code 
programming expertise and with the ability to plan 
projects and co-ordinate the work of other people. 
Graphics Designer — with some knowledge of 
programming, and capable of producing creative 
ideas. 

Programmer — with knowledge of 6502 machine- 
code and BASIC and preferably some acquaintance 
with the BBC Micro. Games programming experi- 
ence is essential. 

DiTilI#. Johnson-Duvles. 

Managing Director. 

A torn soft Limited, 

4 A Market Hill. 

Cambridge CB23NJ 


RETAIL STAFF REQUIRED 

We are looking for lively, intelligent sales staff to work in our expanding 
electronics department. 

Knowledge of home computers, software and electronic games, and sales 
ability essential. 

Also people with administrative ability and marketing flair for our mail order 
department. 

Write with details of expertise and experience to: 

Ms. Louise Tracy, Games Centre, 22 Oxford Street, London W1A 2LS 



MICROSHOP 

CALL 

CHRISTIAN 

McCARTHAY 

ON 

01-636 6890 


Microshop Classified 


• BBC fast tape indexing. "Autoload" uses 'Fastwind' 
for rapid, automatic lape search for loading or saving 
up to 20 progs on C M) tape, machine resident Instant 
detailed catalogue . fully documented . plus free m/code 
disassembler, cassette £5-75. Davie Soft. Marcbrook. 
Newborough. Staffs Tel: (08375-34$ 


• Oriel: Demos software sale lansoft. flight £7 3$. 
multi £7 35, chess £9-99, zodiac £9 99. arcadia 
invaders £5 50 mushroom £5-50 ♦ gift. Chcquc/P.O. 
"Demos Computers''. 60 Croft Road. Stockton. 
Cleveland. TS16QDY 


• BSC Pragma— . high price or royalties paid for 
original gamcvcxccptional software, especially 
machine code, for the BBC. all software treated 
confidentially and returned Send to: CCL, The 
Gabies. Watimg Street. Hockliffc. Leighton Buzzard. 
BcdsLCH 9NB 

• Prkrtsn at Mdafi prices. Star DP510. £265. Star 
DP5I5 £365. Juki 6100 daisywheel. £395. VAT and 
delivery included CWO only, send chcque/PO to: 
Data Marketing. 31 Plantation Road. Leighton 
Buzzard. Beds Tel: (0525) 370369 

• Origan basic, disassembly. DASM assembly listings 
£1 20 for 20 pages, send cassette and requirements. 5 
Wolslcnholmc lame, Norden. Rochdale. Lancs 


a CiupuMr O n wars safeguard your micro for one year 
against repair and renewal Interested then write for 
details to Alcan Ltd . 12 Tedworth Close. Guisbot- 
ough. Cleveland TSI4 7PR. 

a Atari 40U M0 Software, disassembler, (memory and 
dos files with labels), fast shape filler, data entry, 
advertiser, quiz, all £5 Terminal. Isam disc database. 
£10. Ixian Technology. 5 Crawford Rue. Maidenhead 
SL67LR 

• 007 Say Haaykat, a unique back-up copier, can 
genuinely make copies of any Spectrum tape and can 
Stop/lJst machine code programs. £3.95. ZX-Guaran- 
teed (Office PCN). 29 Chaddcrton Drive, Unsworth. 
Bury. Lancs 


86 


PCN SEPTEMBER 22 SEPTEMBER 28, 1983 




Information 


The wonderful world of the PCW 
Show opens up again on 29th and 30th 
September and 1st and 2nd October. 

And, like every previous Show, it’s 
the one and only place for the newest, 
biggest, smallest, costliest, cheapest, 
finest, micro hardware, software, 
bolt-ons and books. 

Where the big new* breaks first. 

At the Personal Computer World Show 
you’ll see the launch of some 
astonishing new kit, fascinating 
software and vital peripherals. 

And you can discover it all at first 
hand, scooping all the magazines. 

Know the world of personal 
computers. 

Just about every micro manufacturer, 
software vendor, and goodie supplier 
will be at the PCW Show. 

PCN SEPTEMBER 22-SEPTEMBER 28. 1483 


There’ll be special deals on offer, 
too, as well as the chance to enter the 
Computer Scrabble® competition, 
and watch the 4th European 
Computer Chess championship. 

Plus the Microcomputing Centre, 
Computer Town, Computer Clubs, 


I INSTANT ? TICKETS! I 

tele *data 

01-2000200 


The time and place for everything. 

Make sure you visit the PCW Show. 

It’s on from Thursday September 29th 
until Sunday October 2nd, at the 
Barbican Exhibition Centre in London. 

It’ll be fully signposted, and is 
easy to reach by tube, bus or car. 

Make sure you don’t miss out 


The PCW Show: £3.00 -but to 
you £2.50. 

Clip and keep this voucher to save 50p 
when you buy a PCW Show ticket on 
the day. 

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ 


■ PCW Show, Barbican, 

■ London -29, 30 September 

■ & 1, 2 October 1983 

■ This voucher entitles the bearer 

■ to 50p (fifty pence) discount on the 

■ full £3.00 entrance fee to the 

■ Personal Computer World Show. 

J The organisers reserve the right to admission 
U Only one voucher per pereon/entrance pcwI 


QUIT 



Snail score 


The performance rating in our 
Pro-Test of Snail Logo in last 
week's issue took an unwar- 
ranted dive when its score 
dropped off the page before 
printing. It scored two. 

Upgrade upbraid 

In the Commodore 64 Micro- 
paedia. the Commodore IEEE 
interface was quoted as being 
cheaper than the DAMS inter- 
face But, in fact, the DAMS 
interface costs £59. 95 and Com- 
modore's cost £80. The £39.95 
quoted erroneously refers to 
Commodore's RS232 interface 
for the machine. 

Signal error 

Two clarifications, too. in our 
Dragon Micropaedia. In our 
exploded view of the Dragon 
board we gave the impression 
that the machine could run true 
RGB colour through the RGB 
socket, but in fact, it runs 
simple composite RGB with 
sound. Also on page 219, at the 
end of line 11) in our Morse code 
program the statement 
A** ACS (AS) should read 
A = ASC (AS). 


On the Levell 


Events overtook a Barnet com- 
pany in spectacular style this 
week. In the week that saw 
Osborne sinking in the west, a 
firm circulated a press release 
proclaiming that it has been 
appointed as main dealers for 
the ill-fated portable. 

The go-ahead Osborne 
Computer Corporation,' the 
letter from Levell Electronics 
starts, and continues in glowing 


prose about Osborne, the man. 
the machine and the company. 

The best is at the end. 
'Reliability is a key factor when 
you have a computer and Levell 
Electronics chose to market 
Osborne Computers only after 
they assured themselves that 
these products were reliable,' 
says Levell. 

Ah well. Nice machine, 
shame about the company. 


NEXT WEEK 

l Micropaedia Special — Start 
collecting a magnificent eight- 
part pull-out on everything 
about programming. 

Hardware — NEC muscles in on 
the market with APC. 
Peripherals — Thrills and spills 
as PCS reviews the Mkronet 
modem. 

Software — We look at Finan- 
cial Planner Tor the IBM PC. 
Gameplay — Test runs of games 
for the Dragon, BBC, Spectrum 
and Commodore 64. 


software that ‘is more relevant 
and more useful to women'. It 
cites a gardening program that 
is almost three months old. and 
apparently this is the only 
example it can produce at the 
moment. 

But programs on raffia work . 
jam-making and meals on 
wheels are sure to come sooner 
or later. 


Distaff data 

Acorn has discovered that 
women are falling behind in the 
race to computer literacy. 
Ignoring one possible explana- 
tion — that women are waiting 
for Acorn's second processor 
on the BBC— the company has 
set about rectifying this. 


But here it is. from the 
horscs's mouth. 

Chris Curry speaks, and the 
flower of the UK’s w omanhood 
holdsit breath: ‘Wearc attemp- 
ting to do something about this 
problem by aiming our pro- 
ducts as much at women as at 
men. 

Acorn says that its attempts 
take the form of producing 




PCN Datelines keeps you in touch with up-coming events. Make PCN Datelines should send the information at least one month 
sure you enter them in your diary. before the event. Write to PCN Datelines. Personal Computer 

Organisers who would like details of coming events included in News. 62 Oxford Street. London W1A 2HG. 

1 UK EVENTS 

Event 

Dates 

Venue 

Organisers 

Second National British Osborne 

September 17 

National Liberal Club. 1 Whitehall 

Dr J Anglcsea. 02 1-472 131 1 Ext 275 

Owners’ Ciroup Meeting 


Place. London SWI 


Home Entertainment Show 

September 17-25 

Olympia. London 

Montbuild Ltd. 01 -486 1951 

Kent Apple Village 

September 18-21 

Stour Centre. Ashford. Kent 

Database Publications. 061-4568383 

Computer Open Day 

September 22 

Central Hotel. Glasgow 

Couchmcad Communications Ltd. 01-778 1 102 

Exhibition 




Microcomputers in Business 

September 27-29 

Warwick University. Coventry 

Peter Bubb. 01-892 4422 

IWP one-day workshop 

September 29 

City Conference Centre. 

Ouadrilect. 3Courtfield House. Baldwin 



76 Mark Lane. London EC3 

Gardens. London EC1, 01-242 8697 

Personal Computer World Show 

September 29- 

Barbican Centre, London 

Montbuild Ltd. 01-486 1951 

Computer Fair 

October 2 

ITie Sir Frederic Osborn School. 

R Brown 



Welwyn Garden City 

Welwyn Garden City 23367 

Lancaster & Morecambc Computer 

October 29 

Lower Town Hall. Lancaster 

Brian Sheldon. 0524 61831 

Club Open Day 

Software Expo 

November 8- 10 

Wembley Conference Centre. 

Intcrco. 01-948 31 11 



London 


I OVERSEAS EVENTS 

Event 

Dates 

Venue 

Organisers 

Skob '83 

September 21-30 

Paris. France 

French Trade Exhibition. 01-439 3964 

Info '83 

October 10-13 

New York. USA 

Cahners Exposition Group. 0483 38085 

Computer Systems International 

October 17-21 

Munich. West Germany 

ECL Exhibition Agencies. 01-486 1951 

Trade Fair & Congress 





Mt 


PCN SEPTEMBER ^-SEPTEMBER 28. 1983 






THE MT80. SHAPED 
BY EXPERIENCE 



You arc looking at theskek, ultra modem 
lines of the latest dot matrix printer from 
Mannesmann Tally; the people who probably 
have more experience in computer printers 
than just about anyone. 

The MTHI > is a high quality, low cost 80 
column. HOcps printer that will complement 
any of today's micros in kxiksand quality; in 
either the home or the office. 

It has been designed with industry- 


compatible interfaces in hardware and 
software. 

Experience tells us exactly what you want 
from a printer -The MTHO has dual density 
dot addressable and line graphics. An easy 
change, king life cassette ribbon. It can handk 
both tractor-fed fanfold and single sheet 
paper. There is a unique quick tear facility 
giving you a clean cut along the entire width 
of the paper. And it even has an optional 


sound reduction kit for those of you who like 
to hear yourselves think. 

But best of all. it comes equipped with 
another valuabk asset. A very attractive price 
tag- 

Contact your nearest distributor or send 
for our colour literama*. 

Mannesmann Tally Limited. 

Mollv Millars Lane. Wokingham, Berkshire 
RG1 1 2QT. Tel: (0734) 78871 1 . Telex: 847028 



MANNESMANN TALLY 

CREATING THE RIGHT IMAGE IN PRINT 



TRANSVERSION 


The Greatest Game 
under the Bun' 




PACKED WITH 
MORE FUR. 
CHALLENGE AND 
EXCITEMENT 

Spettrum Titles £5. 
VIC 26 Titles £5. 
commodore 64 
Titles £6.90 

Oric 1 Titles £6.90 


• AflCADE/gOUNO 
EFFECTS 

• MACHINE CODE 
ACTION 


DEALERS: / < 

Ocean’s fast Selling range 
is availab le from all major 

inf^mation ^ 
phone 061-832 7049 


Ocean Software is available from 
\\ II SMITH. JohrtMenztes 
selected branches of LASKYS. 
Spectrum Shops. Computers tor all, 
RUMBUOWS Maior Department 
Stores and all good software outlets. 
Details phone 061-832 9143 


NUMBER 1 IN GAMES SOFTWARE 

Ocean software limited, ralli buildings 

STANLEY STREET. MANCHESTER M3 5FD 


SS
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